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University  of  Virginia 
Barbour-Page  Foundation 

ORIGINS  OF  THE  TRIPLE 
ALLIANCE 


THREE  LECTURES 

BY 

ARCHIBALD  GARY  COOLIDGE 

PROFESSOR   OF   HISTORY   IN  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1917 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


PubUshed  July,  1917 


■^  UNIvrP.SITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

tJ^  n  SANVA  BAirJARA  CCILE  :.S  LIBRARY 

"^  ^  ^  76890 


QM 


PREFACE 

In  January,  1916,  I  had  the  honor  and 
the  pleasure  of  giving  the  Barbour-Page 
lectures  for  that  year  at  the  University  of 
Virginia.  The  substance  of  those  lec- 
tures is  reproduced  in  this  little  volume, 
though  there  have  been  many  changes  in 
the  form  besides  the  addition  of  foot- 
notes. Any  one  who  wishes  to  under- 
stand even  in  a  superficial  way  the  causes 
that  have  brought  about  the  present 
world  conflict  should  familiarize  himself 
with  the  history  of  Europe  since  the 
Franco-Prussian  War,  and  should  try  to 
grasp  the  interplay  of  political  forces,  the 
aims  of  statesmen,  and  the  aspirations  of 
peoples  during  that  period.  For  the 
greater  part  of  the  time  the  so-called 
Triple  Alliance  was  the  strongest  political 
and  military  element  in  the  international 
situation.  Its  friends  declared  that  it  was 
Ian  element  for  peace;  its  enemies  regarded 


vi  PREFACE 

it  as  a  conservative  league  to  protect  ill-  \ 
gotten  gains.  Although  it  dissolved  when 
brought  to  the  touchstone  of  actual  war, 
its  importance  as  an  international  factor 
for  many  years  makes  it  well  worth  our 
study.  In  the  following  three  chapters  I 
have  tried  to  point  out  the  causes,  per- 
sonal as  well  as  international,  that  led 
to  its  formation.  I  have  not  made  any 
startling  discoveries,  nor  have  I  new  the- 
ories to  put  forth,  but  I  believe  I  have 
made  use  of  the  best  accessible  informa- 
tion. Instead  of  St.  Petersburg  I  ought 
perhaps  to  have  used  the  name  Petrograd, 
and  I  should  have  done  so  in  speaking  of 
current  affairs,  but  for  those  of  the  past 
it  still  seems  permissible  to  keep  to  the 
older  form.  For  the  sake  of  brevity  and 
smoothness  I  have  often  used  the  word 
Austria  where  Austria-Hungary  or  the 
Dual  Empire  would  have  been  more  cor- 
rect; but  this,  also,  is,  I  think,  condoned 
by  current  usage. 

June,  1917. 


ORIGINS  OF  THE  TRIPLE 
ALLIANCE 


r:i.,-siiiumt*Qitti0etu*''ii"n 


THE    ORIGINS    OF    THE 
TRIPLE    ALLIANCE 

CHAPTER  I 

On  May  lo,  1871,  the  Peace  of  Frank- 
fort was  signed  between  the  new  French 
republic  and  the  still  newer  German  em- 
pire. This  date  may  be  regarded  as 
marking,  in  the  conventional  way  that 
'  dates  do,  the  termination  not  only  of 
a  great  and  dramatic  war,  but  also  of 
a  period  of  European  history.  With 
the  complete  triumph  of  Germany  over 
France,  accompanied  by  the  overthrow 
of  what  a  few  years  before  had  seemed 
i  the  brilliantly  successful  government  of 
'  Napoleon  III,  with  the  proclamation  at 
Versailles  of  William  of  Prussia  as  Ger- 
man emperor,  with  the  entry  of  the 
Italian  troops  Into  Rome,  and  the  ex- 


THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


tinction  of  the  age-long  temporal  sov- 
ereignty of  the  Pope,  Europe  had  within 
a  few  months  undergone  such  changes  as 
to  constitute  the  end  of  an  epoch  and 
the  beginning  of  a  new  one.  This  new 
epoch,  which  closes  with  the  war  of  19 14, 
may  be  described  as  that  of  the  ascen- 
dancy of  Germany. 

The  Europe  of  1871  was  represented 
and  controlled,  as  it  had  been  for  cen- 
turies, by  certain  great  powers,  jealous  ^ 
indeed  of  one  another  and  often  in  disa- 
greement, but  whose  collective  decision 
once  reached  was  in  practice  binding 
upon  the  rest  of  the  continent.  The 
composition  of  the  group  had  varied 
from  time  to  time,  and  the  relative 
strength  and  influence  of  the  different 
members  had  been  subject  to  continual 
readjustment.  They  were  six  in  number.  ( 
One  of  them,  united  Italy,  had  only  just  I 
come  into  existence  and  was  hardly  rec- 
ognized by  the  rest  as  quite  an  equal. 
Imperial  Germany,  on  the  other  hand, 


THE  GREAT  POWERS 


was  a  political  outgrowth  of  the  kingdom 
of  Prussia,  which  had  been  a  power  for 
more  than  a  century,  and  now  in  its  new 
form,  crowned  with  a  halo  of  victories,  it 
had  stepped  from  the  last  to  the  first 
place  among  the  great  European  states. 
Three  of  the  others,  Russia,  Austria,  and 
France,  had  been  severely  defeated  in 
war  in  the  course  of  the  last  twenty  years, 
and  of  these  none  so  disastrously  as 
France. 

Ever  since  the  days  of  Richelieu,  for 
well  over  two  centuries,  France  had  been, 
with  occasional  eclipses,  the  first  power 
in  the  world.  One  coalition  after  an- 
other had  been  necessary  to  check  the 
ambitions  of  Louis  XIV.  The  last  and 
most  formidable  of  all,  though  its  armies, 
led  by  Marlborough  and  Eugene,  hum- 
bled his  pride  and  exhausted  his  resources, 
did  not  succeed  in  preventing  him  from 
seating  his  grandson  on  the  throne  of 
Spain.  Even  the  fatal  reign  of  Louis  XV, 
with  its  loss  of  colonial  empires  in  North 


THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


America  and  India,  was  marked  by  the 
widest  supremacy  of  the  French  language 
and  of  French  ideas.  Politically,  too, 
France  soon  began  to  recover  under  his 
successor  and  enjoyed  a  partial  revenge 
on  England  in  the  war  of  American  inde- 
pendence. Then  followed  the  victories  of 
the  Revolution,  and  the  unexampled  glo- 
ries of  the  Napoleonic  empire,  when  the 
conquering  soldiers  of  France  entered  the 
gates  of  Berlin  and  Vienna,  of  Rome  and 
of  Madrid  and  of  Moscow.  When  at  last 
the  tide  turned  and  she  was  vanquished 
by  combined  Europe,  only  a  few  years  of 
rest  were  necessary  for  her  before  she 
again  began  to  assert  herself.  A  genera- 
tion later,  under  Napoleon  III,  she  was 
victorious  in  the  Crimea  and  in  Italy, 
and  once  more  became  the  brilliant  cen- 
tre of  Europe  and  the  leading  power  in 
international  affairs. 

Now  all  was  changed.  France  had 
been  overwhelmingly  defeated,  this  time 
not  by  a  coalition,  but  by  a  single  foe,  in 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  FRANCE 


a  war  into  which  she  had  entered  'with  a 
Hght  heart'  and  in  which  she  had  lost 
every  important  battle.  A  large  part  of 
her  territory  had  been  overrun,  her  capi- 
tal had  been  entered  by  the  victorious 
enemy,  she  had  had  imposed  upon  her 
the  payment  of  an  indemnity  such  as  had 
never  been  heard  of  in  history.  She  was 
deprived  of  her  eastern  provinces,  Alsace 
and  part  of  Lorraine,  with  some  1,600,000 
people,  and  she  was  left  with  a  disad- 
vantageous frontier  unfortified  against  a 
neighbor  who  had  just  given  such  fearful 
evidence  of  his  power.  As  a  crowning 
humiliation,  she  had  to  retake  Paris  itself 
from  the  anarchistic  government  of  the 
Commune  amid  wild  scenes  of  bloodshed, 
and  this  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  Ger- 
mans. In  the  midst  of  these  disasters 
she  met  with  little  compassion  from  the 
outside  world.  Sympathy  is  the  last 
thing  a  vanquished  nation  may  expect  to 
find,  especially  if  it  has  excited  envy  in 
the  past.     Instead,  it  is  assured  that  it 


THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


has  merited  its  fate  by  its  faults,  which 
are  pointed  out  to  it  with  unsparing 
frankness. 

When  we  add  to  all  this  the  fact  that  in 
1 87 1  the  government  of  France  was  con- 
fessedly only  provisional,  and  the  existing 
republican  form  did  not  appear  to  satisfy 
the  wishes  of  the  majority  of  the  people, 
though  there  was  no  telling  just  what 
they  did  want,  and  finally  when  we  re- 
member that  her  birth  rate  had  long  been 
declining  and  was  lower  than  that  of  any 
other  country  in  Europe,  we  can  see  rea- 
son enough  for  the  widespread  belief  that 
her  sun  had  set  and  that  henceforth  she 
must  content  herself  with  a  secondary 
place  among  nations.  In  any  event,  it 
was  hard  to  conceive  that  she  could  ever 
again  be  the  first  state  on  the  continent. 

History  records  with  admiration  the 
way  in  which  the  French  people  and  their 
rulers  met  and  overcame  the  innumerable 
difficulties  that  beset  them,  and  in  a  sur- 
prisingly short  time  brought  order  out  of 


THE  RECOVERY  OF  FRANCE 


chaos.  Their  most  immediate  and  press- 
ing task  was  the  payment  of  the  war  in- 
demnity, in  order  to  obtain  hberation  of 
French  territory  from  the  burden  and 
shame  of  foreign  occupation.  The  huge 
sums  necessary  for  the  purpose  were 
raised  with  a  promptness  that  astonished 
the  world,  and  made  the  Germans  regret 
that  they  had  not  insisted  on  obtaining 
more.  Then  followed  the  painful  process 
of  recovery  from  the  wounds  inflicted  by 
the  war,  the  arduous  work  of  reconstruc- 
tion, and  especially  the  reconstitution  of 
the  military  strength  of  the  country. 
Not  only  did  the  building  of  a  new  chain 
of  fortresses  on  the  exposed  frontier  cost 
by  itself  many  hundred  million  francs, 
but  the  army  had  to  be  reorganized  and 
reenforced  from  top  to  bottom.  Here, 
too,  the  progress  was  soon  such  as  to  pro- 
voke disquiet,  not  to  say  irritation,  on  the 
part  of  the  watchful  neighbor  to  the  east. 
The  question  as  to  the  final  form  of  the 
government  of  France  remained  open  for 


8  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


some  years,  but  in  the  meanwhile  the 
repubUcans,  at  first  a  minority  in  the  na- 
tion and  a  still  smaller  one  among  its 
leading  men,  steadily  gained  ground. 
The  Conservatives,  even  after  they  had 
brought  about  the  fall  of  President  Thiers, 
were  too  divided  among  themselves  to 
profit  by  the  majority  they  had  in  the 
chambers,  and  in  the  end,  against  their 
wills,  they  voted  a  republican  constitu- 
tion. 

These  circumstances  imperatively  de- 
manded that  the  energies  of  France 
should  be  devoted  to  internal  affairs.  In 
consequence,  the  foreign  policy  of  the 
third  republic  was  at  first  cautious,  not 
to  say  timorous,  in  the  extreme,  being 
dominated  by  fear  of  Germany  and  by 
the  necessity  of  avoiding  complications 
of  all  kinds  until  the  country  should  have 
recovered  its  strength.  This  was  no 
time  for  France  to  take  the  initiative  in 
international  questions,  or,  indeed,  to  do 
much  of  anything,  except  keep  on  good 


ITALY  () 

terms  with  other  powers,  and,  if  she 
could  not  make  friends,  at  least  avoid 
giving  offence. 

Her  Latin  sister,  the  young  kingdom 
of  Italy,  was  equally  timid.  Italian 
unity  had  been  achieved  in  large  part 
thanks  to  the  assistance  of  stronger  na- 
tions, and  thanks  also  to  their  quarrels 
with  one  another.  The  coping  stone  of 
the  edifice,  the  acquisition  of  Rome  as  a 
capital,  had  only  been  possible  owing  to 
the  withdrawal  of  the  French  army  of 
occupation  after  the  first  Prussian  vic- 
tories. This  passing  of  the  Eternal  City 
from  the  hands  of  the  papacy,  which  had 
ruled  it  for  so  many  centuries,  had  created 
a  painful  impression  in  the  Catholic 
world.  It  was,  indeed,  no  secret  that  not 
only  in  Austria  and  Germany,  but  also 
among  the  Conservatives  in  France,  there 
were  not  a  few  who  openly  advocated  the 
restoration  of  the  temporal  authority  of 
the  Pope,  and  were  willing  to  use  force  to 
bring  this  about.     The  fear  of  such  inter- 


10  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

vention  was  for  many  years  a  controlling 
element  in  Italian  foreign  policy,  and 
combined  with  a  sense  of  the  weakness 
and  the  backwardness  of  the  new  kingdom 
to  make  its  statesmen  eminently  cautious. 
The  Italians  still  professed  their  gratitude 
for  the  aid  France  had  given  them  on  the 
field  of  battle,  but  they  were  disposed  to 
claim  that  she  had  repaid  herself  by  her 
annexation  of  Nice  and  Savoy,  an  act 
which  they  still  resented.  They  had  not 
forgotten  the  French  occupation  of  Rome, 
and  they  feared  the  advent  to  power  of 
the  clerical  party  in  Paris.  They  were 
also  beginning  to  entertain  ambitions  of  a 
Mediterranean  empire,  ambitions  which 
could  not  fail  to  bring  them  some  day 
into  disagreement  if  not  actual  collision 
with  their  former  benefactor.  Austria 
they  regarded  as  a  one-time  hated  op- 
pressor, who  still  held  Italians  under  her 
rule,  and  was  capable  at  any  moment  of 
again  menacing  Italian  unity  and  inde- 
pendence. 


ENGLAND  ii 


Of  the  great  European  powers,  Eng- 
land was  the  one  that  had  been  least  af- 
fected by  the  recent  convulsions  on  the 
continent;  indeed,  her  position  in  the 
world  had  long  been  subject  to  fewer 
variations  than  that  of  others.  In  the 
course  of  the  last  four  hundred  years, 
though  often  at  war,  she  had  met  with  but 
one  serious  defeat,  the  war  of  American 
independence.  Even  then,  heavy  as  her 
losses  had  been,  they  had  brought  little 
direct  gain  to  her  rivals.  England  had 
never  dominated  Europe,  but  she  had  al- 
ways been  a  power  of  the  first  rank  which 
continental  statesmen  could  not  safely 
leave  out  of  account,  though  they  some- 
times affected  to  do  so.  She  had  reached 
her  highest  point  relatively  in  1815,  after 
her  triumph  over  Napoleon,  whom  she 
had  opposed  so  long,  often  single-handed. 
In  Nelson  she  had  possessed  perhaps  the 
greatest  of  all  admirals,  in  Wellington  she 
had  the  one  general  who  had  been  uni- 
formly victorious  over  the  French,  and  it 


12  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

was  her  troops  that  had  borne  the  brunt 
of  the  fray  in  the  crowning  victory  of 
Waterloo.  At  that  time  she  was  not  only 
the  first  but  in  fact  the  only  great  mari- 
time and  colonial  power;  indeed,  Britan- 
nia ruled  the  waves  more  completely  then 
than  ever  before  or  since.  In  mechanical 
invention,  too,  and  in  industrial  progress, 
she  led  mankind. 

Since  those  days,  however,  her  prestige 
and  political  influence  had  somewhat 
waned.  It  was  not  that  Great  Britain 
had  not  made  satisfactory  progress.  On 
the  contrary,  in  population,  in  industrial 
development,  in  commerce,  in  wealth,  she 
had  advanced  without  halt,  and  she  had 
added  steadily  to  her  vast  colonial  em- 
pire. Nevertheless,  her  position  in  the 
world,  if  imposing,  was  no  longer  com- 
manding. Although  she  still  held  the 
first  place  economically,  other  nations  also 
had  modern  industries  and  extensive  sea- 
going commerce.  The  British  navy  was 
still  the  strongest  in  existence,  but  France 


THE  DECLINE  OF  BRITISH  PRESTIGE        13 

and  the  United  States  possessed  powerful 
fleets.  British  troops  had  won  many  vic- 
tories over  Orientals  and  savages,  but 
such  successes  have  never  made  much 
impression  on  foreign  military  opinion, 
and  in  the  Crimean  war,  the  one  struggle 
where  the  English  had  had  to  face  Euro- 
pean opponents,  though  they  fought  with 
their  usual  bravery,  they  did  not  display 
equal  competence,  and  in  the  later  stages 
they  were  completely  cast  into  the  shade 
by  the  superior  achievements  of  their 
French  allies.  Not  many  people,  even  in 
England,  remember  the  name  of  the  Eng- 
lish general  in  command  when  Sebastopol 
fell.  On  the  continent  there  was  a  ten- 
dency to  depreciate  the  British  army,  and 
to  regard  it  as  something  good  enough 
against  enemies  of  inferior  civilization, 
but  not  the  equal  of  troops  trained  to 
meet  more  scientific  foes. 

In  the  ten  years  preceding  1871,  Eng- 
land had  several  times  been  on  the  verge 
of  war  with  other  great  powers — with  the 


14  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

United  States  over  the  Trent  affair  and 
over  the  question  of  the  Confederate 
cruisers,  with  Russia  over  the  Pohsh  in- 
surrection of  1863,  and  with  the  German 
states  over  the  Schleswig-Holstein  ques- 
tion. In  the  Trent  affair,  the  demand  of 
England  had  been  acceded  to,  but  in  the 
other  cases  she  had  suffered  some  hu- 
miUation.  She  was  still  harassed  by  the 
question  of  the  Alabama  claims,  which, 
as  later  arbitrated,  ended  in  a  triumph 
for  the  United  States;  she  had  encouraged 
the  Polish  revolt  by  joint  diplomatic  in- 
tervention with  France  in  its  behalf,  but 
as  she  was  unwilling  to  go  to  the  point  of 
war,  she  had  to  submit  to  being  severely 
snubbed  by  Russia,  while  the  Poles  were 
in  the  end  left  worse  off  than  ever;  and  in 
the  question  of  Schleswig-Holstein,  she 
had  likewise  failed  altogether  to  make 
good  her  words  by  action.  Of  late,  espe- 
cially since  the  disappearance  from  the 
scene  of  the  bumptious  figure  of  Lord 
Palmerston,  the  foreign  policy  of  England 


ENGLISH  FOREIGN  POLICY  15 

had  been  unaggressive   and   inclined   to 
mind  its  own  business. 

During  the  Franco-Prussian  war  Eng- 
Hsh  pubUc  opinion  had  been  in  the  main 
favorable  to  the  Germans.  This  was  not 
due  to  any  especial  love  for  them,  though 
there  was  much  respect  for  Prussia,  but 
Englishmen  had  sympathized  with  the 
achievement  of  German  unity,  and  for 
some  years  they  had  disliked  and  dis- 
trusted their  former  ally.  Emperor  Napo- 
leon III.  The  way,  too,  in  which  the  war 
had  apparently  been  brought  about  had 
prejudiced  many  against  France,  as  had 
Bismarck's  timely  revelations  of  French 
desires  for  the  acquisition  of  Belgium. 
The  first  victories  of  the  German  armies 
were,  therefore,  generally  applauded.  It 
is  true  that,  after  the  overthrow  of 
the  Second  Empire,  the  heroic  efforts  of 
France  to  retrieve  her  desperate  fortunes 
and  the  severity  of  the  terms  of  peace 
imposed  upon  her  produced  a  certain 
reaction  in  her  favor,  but,  as  a  whole, 


i6  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

English  feeling  toward  the  new  German 
empire  was  one  of  cordiality  and  frank 
admiration.  There  seemed  to  be  no  im- 
portant matters  about  which  the  interests 
of  the  two  peoples  were  likely  to  conflict, 
and  the  relations  between  the  two  courts 
were  intimate.  Prince  Albert  of  Saxe- 
Coburg,  the  beloved  husband  of  Queen 
Victoria,  had  been  a  patriotic  German, 
and  their  daughter  was  now  married  to 
Crown  Prince  Frederick,  the  heir  to  the 
new  imperial  throne. 

The  only  power  which  England  viewed 
with  suspicion  and  hostility  was  Russia; 
indeed,  there  had  been  little  improvement 
in  the  relations  between  the  two  countries 
since  the  Crimean  war.  The  events  con- 
nected with  the  Polish  insurrection,  the 
renewal  of  Russian  activity  in  Asia,  and 
particularly  the  repudiation  by  Russia  of 
the  article  in  the  Treaty  of  Paris  that 
limited  her  freedom  of  action  in  the  Black 
Sea,  had  aroused  British  anger  and  deep- 
ened British  distrust  of  a  state  whose  de- 


ENGLAND  AND  RUSSIA  17 


signs  were  deemed  to  be  full  of  menace 
to  the  interests  of  the  British  empire. 

Russia  under  Tsar  Alexander  II  had 
profited  by  the  bitter  experiences  of  the 
Crimean  war  to  put  her  house  in  order. 
Public  opinion,  from  the  emperor  down, 
had  realized  that  the  country  was  in 
need  of  drastic  changes,  and  that  all  re- 
forms must  be  based  on  the  fundamental 
one  of  the  abolition  of  serfdom.  This, 
perhaps  the  greatest  legislative  act  in  the 
history  of  mankind,  had  been  formally 
proclaimed  on  March  3,  1861.  It  had 
been  carried  out  with  the  enthusiastic 
support  of  all  that  was  best  in  the  nation 
and  had  been  followed  up  by  the  insti- 
tution of  provincial  councils  and  by  other 
measures  of  far-reaching  importance  that 
should  help  to  create  a  new  Russia.  But, 
as  was  inevitable  in  a  work  of  such  mag- 
nitude, there  had  been  numerous  mis- 
takes in  matters  of  detail,  and  the  first 
enthusiasm  of  the  public  was  succeeded 
by    disappointment.     The    government, 


l8  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


too,  alarmed  at  some  of  the  results  of  its 
own  policy,  had  of  late  grown  reactionary, 
and  had  thereby  aroused  increasing  dis- 
content  among  the   liberal   elements  of 
society.     In  her  absorption  in  the  work 
of  internal  regeneration  and  also  in  that 
of  reconstituting  her  military  strength, 
Russia  had  for  fifteen  years  withdrawn 
from  active  participation  in  international 
questions.     She  had  taken  no  share  in  the 
events  that  led  to  the  liberation  of  Italy 
and  to  the  unification  of  Germany.     She 
had,  it  is  true,  watched  with  lively  satis- 
faction  the    defeat    and    humiliation   of 
Austria,  whose  ungrateful  hostility  at  the 
time  of  the  Crimean  war  she  had  not 
forgiven.     For  a  while  she  had  seemed 
to  seek  closer  relations  with  France,  but 
the  threat  of  French  intervention  during 
the  Polish  insurrection,  in  contrast  with 
the  ostentatious  friendship  of  Prussia  at 
this  juncture,  had  led  to  a  reawakening  of 
Russian  nationalism  and  thrown  Alexan- 
der II  into  the  embrace  of  his  kinsman 


RUSSIA   AND  GERMANY  19 

in  Berlin.  The  Tsar  had  not  only  drunk 
to  the  success  of  German  arms  at  the 
time  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  he  had 
hkewise  made  no  secret  of  the  intention 
of  Russia  to  intervene  in  case  Austria 
should  ally  herself  to  France.  In  return, 
Russia,  with  the  complicity  of  Bismarck, 
had  profited  by  the  French  disasters  to 
abrogate  the  Black  Sea  clause  in  the 
Treaty  of  Paris  in  defiance  of  England 
and  Austria,  who  had  protested  angrily, 
but  in  the  end  could  only  sanction*  what 
they  were  unable  to  prevent.  In  1871 
official  relations  between  Berlin  and  St. 
Petersburg  were  of  the  most  cordial  na- 
ture, and  personal  ones  were  closer  still. 
To  be  sure,  the  former  friendship  of  the 
two  chancellors,  Gorchakov  and  Bis- 
marck, had  cooled  down  in  the  course  of 
time — neither  of  the  two  was  sentimental 
in  such  matters — but  real  ties  of  affection 
bound  together  Tsar  Alexander  and  his 
uncle.  Kaiser  William. 

*  At  the  London  Conference  in  1871. 


20  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

Austria-Hungary  had  within  a  few 
years  undergone  profound  changes,  both 
external  and  internal.  When  Francis  Jo- 
seph had  come  to  the  throne  on  December 
2,  1848,  his  territories  were  in  the  throes 
of  revolutions  that  threatened  the  very 
existence  of  his  empire.  Thanks,  how- 
ever, to  able  generals  and  ministers,  and 
still  more  thanks  to  the  assistance  of  Rus- 
sia, he  had  triumphed  over  Italians,  Hun- 
garians, and  other  insurgents,  and  had 
been  able  to  resume  his  absolute  author- 
ity. The  German  Confederation  was  re- 
established, with  Austria  once  more  as  its 
leading  member,  and  presently  Russia,  an 
all  too  powerful  friend,  was  defeated  in 
the  Crimean  war,  while  Austria  took  the 
opportunity  to  "astonish  the  world  by 
her  ingratitude."  But  this  period  of  suc- 
cess had  been  short-lived.  In  1859,  Aus- 
tria had  been  expelled  by  the  French  from 
Italy,  save  for  the  Trentino  and  the  prov- 
ince of  Venetia,  and  had  been  forced  to 
tolerate  the  growth  of  a  united  Italian 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY  21 

State.  Seven  years  later,  by  the  battle  of 
Sadowa,  she  lost  Venetia,  and  had  also  to 
submit  to  being  excluded  from  Germany, 
to  which  her  own  German  territories  had 
belonged  by  race  and  history  ever  since 
they  had  come  into  existence.  Her  sys- 
tem of  centralized  despotic  rule  had  now 
broken  down,  and  disaffection  was  rife 
throughout  the  empire. 

It  was  high  time  for  a  change  of  policy. 
The  imperial  government  turned  to  the 
strongest  of  the  discontented  elements, 
the  Hungarians,  and  offered  to  meet  their 
wishes.  In  the  negotiations  that  ensued 
the  Hungarian  leaders  showed  themselves 
much  the  shrewder  of  the  two  parties. 
The  agreement  reached,  the  so-called 
Ausgleich,  was  highly  favorable  to  them, 
for  they  succeeded  in  obtaining  not  only 
a  liberal  constitution  for  their  kingdom, 
but  a  complete  ascendancy  for  the  Mag- 
yar race  over  all  other  elements  in  it,  and 
a  reincorporation  in  it  of  the  province  of 
Croatia,  thus  dividing  and  weakening  the 


22  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


South  Slavs.  Hungary,  though  the  less 
populous  of  the  two  halves  of  the  mon- 
archy, was  granted  equal  rights  with 
Austria  in  every  respect,  except  in  the 
language  of  the  army,  and  she  soon  ob- 
tained and  has  kept  more  than  an  equal 
influence  in  the  management  of  foreign 
affairs.  The  least  statesmanlike  part  of 
the  new  constitution  was  the  provision 
that  the  Ausgleich  should  hold  good  only 
for  periods  of  ten  years  at  a  time,  and 
should  then  be  renewed  by  fresh  agree- 
ment. It  is  in  human  nature  that  such 
renewals  can  only  be  reached  after  sharp 
bargaining,  and  that  every  ten  years  the 
Dual  Empire  is  threatened  with  a  crisis. 
Just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war,  Austria  had  been  in  nego- 
tiation with  France  for  an  alliance  that 
should  bring  her  revenge  against  Prussia. 
The  plan  had  come  to  nothing,  owing  to 
the  opposition  of  the  Hungarians,  the 
attitude  of  Russia,  and  the  sudden  com- 
pleteness of  the  German  victories.     Aus- 


GERMANY  23 


tria  quickly  saw  the  error  of  her  ways,  and 
was  anxious  for  reconcihation  with  her 
old  rival  and  recently  triumphant  foe. 

All  that  France  had  lost  in  the  disas- 
trous war  of  1870,  and  more,  Germany 
had  gained.  The  position  of  Napoleon  III 
at  the  height  of  his  fortunes  had  never  ap- 
proached that  attained  by  his  victorious 
adversary,  William  of  Prussia,  now  Ger- 
man emperor.  The  rank  of  the  Germans 
as  one  of  the  great  peoples  of  Europe  had 
long  been  secure.  Their  achievements  in 
many  fields  ever  since  they  had  over- 
thrown the  Roman  empire  had  assured 
them  a  foremost  place  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  and  though  after  the  close  of 
their  period  of  splendid  accomplishments 
in  the  middle  ages  they  had  lost  their  po- 
litical eminence,  they  had  given  repeated 
proof  of  their  vitality  and  genius.  Dur- 
ing the  last  hundred  years  they  had  gained 
fresh  distinction  in  many  fields  of  human 
endeavor.  German  literature  could  show 
names  that  rivalled  any  in  the  literature 


24  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

of  England  or  of  France;  German  music 
had  surpassed  the  glory  of  the  Italian; 
German  philosophy,  with  its  cluster  of 
celebrities  of  the  first  rank,  had  not  been 
equalled  since  the  days  of  ancient  Greece; 
German  science  had  already  come  to  be 
regarded  as  second  to  none;  German  uni- 
versities, as  the  models  of  learning  and 
advanced  thought,  were  attracting  stu- 
dents from  all  over  the  civilized  world. 
Even  German  military  prestige,  some- 
what tarnished  with  time,  had  received 
fresh  lustre  from  the  exploits  of  Frederick 
the  Great.  Since  his  day,  however.  It  had 
hardly  gained,  for  Waterloo,  where  the 
English  had  done  most  of  the  fighting,  did 
not  more  than  efface  the  memories  of 
Jena,  and  the  Germans  as  a  whole  had 
the  reputation  of  being  not  so  much  a 
people  of  soldiers  as  of  thinkers  and  poets. 
In  one  respect  Germany  had  been  for 
centuries  a  conspicuous  failure.  Her  peo- 
ple, though  not  devoid  of  national  feeling 
and  pride,  had  long  seemed  unable  to  form 


GERMANY  25 


any  real  political  union.  Her  magnificent 
empire  of  the  middle  ages  had  disinte- 
grated into  a  mass  of  disjointed  frag- 
ments, many  of  them  ridiculously  small, 
and  tempting  to  the  cupidity  of  their 
neighbors.  The  wars  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution had,  indeed,  swept  most  of  these 
petty  states  into  the  melting-pot,  and  the 
final  rising  against  Napoleon  had  taken 
on  the  character  of  a  true  national  move- 
ment, but  the  hopes  of  patriots  had  been 
bitterly  disappointed  after  the  overthrow 
of  the  oppressor.  Left  to  themselves, 
that  is  to  say,  to  their  governments,  the 
Germans  had  been  able  only  to  produce 
a  confederation  helpless  for  any  effective 
purpose,  and  one  whose  two  chief  mem- 
bers watched  each  other  with  constant 
jealousy  and  seldom  combined  except  to 
put  pressure  on  the  others.  The  story 
of  the  abortive  risings  of  1848,  and  the 
lamentable  fiasco  of  the  Parliament  of 
Frankfort  appeared  to  set  the  seal  on 
German  political  incapacity. 


26  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

Now  all  was  changed.  Prussia  in  six 
years  had  fought  three  successful  wars. 
The  first  of  these,  it  is  true,  had  been 
against  so  weak  a  foe  that  it  could  bring 
but  little  glory,  but  in  the  second  Austria 
had  been  defeated  in  six  weeks,  and  in  the 
third  two  great  French  armies  had  been 
forced  to  surrender,  others  had  been  re- 
peatedly defeated,  Paris  had  had  to  yield 
to  a  siege,  and  at  Versailles,  in  the  halls 
that  had  witnessed  the  splendors  of  Louis 
XIV,  there  had  been  proclaimed  a  new 
German  empire,  which  seemed  to  rec- 
oncile the  conflicting  claims  of  the  au- 
tonomy of  the  smaller  states  and  of  the 
necessary  predominance  of  Prussia,  the 
principle  of  a  strong  monarchical  author- 
ity and  a  modern  parliament  based  on 
universal  sufl^rage.  The  political  achieve- 
ment was  as  remarkable  as  the  military. 
No  wonder  that  the  world  was  filled  with 
astonishment  and  admiration.  "Eu- 
rope," it  was  said,  "has  lost  a  mistress 
and  got  a  master."  *     Not  only  was  the 

*  Morley's  Gladstone,  ii,  p.  357. 


BISMARCK  27 


victorious  German  army  without  ques- 
tion the  most  powerful  in  existence  and 
under  the  command  of  the  first  general  in 
Europe,  but  the  destinies  of  the  new  em- 
pire were  directed  by  the  great  statesman 
who  had  forged  it  *with  blood  and  iron,* 
Prince  Otto  von  Bismarck. 

In  1 87 1,  the  German  chancellor  was 
fifty-six  years  of  age.  Though  somewhat 
fatigued  by  his  labors,  he  was  at  the 
height  of  his  extraordinary  intellectual 
powers.  Since  the  days  of  the  first  Na- 
poleon, no  man  in  Europe  had  been  so 
feared  and  admired.  Even  his  enemies — 
and  he  had  many  of  them — did  not  ven- 
ture to  question  his  genius.  His  domi- 
nant personality,  his  gift  of  caustic  ex- 
pression, the  apparent  reckless  frankness, 
nay,  the  very  brutality  of  his  utterances, 
fascinated  and  subjugated  those  with 
whom  he  came  into  contact.  Born  for 
strife,  he  passionately  resented  opposi- 
tion, and  was  a  good  hater  who  seldom 
forgot  an  injury.  The  difficulties  he  had 
to  overcome  in  winning  over  his  master 


28  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

to  his  opinions — for  William  of  Hohen- 
zoUern,  who  took  a  serious  view  of  his 
rights  and  duties  as  a  sovereign,  was  not 
easy  to  convince — and  the  resistance  that 
he  not  infrequently  met  with  at  the  hands 
of  the  parties  in  the  Reichstag,  or  of  the 
military  authorities,  or  of  hostile  influ- 
ences at  court,  at  times  so  irritated  Bis- 
marck's nerves  as  to  menace  a  breakdown 
of  his  health  and  render  intercourse  with 
him  difl[icult.  Ever  and  anon  he  would 
threaten  to  resign;  but,  except  at  certain 
critical  moments,  we  may  question  the 
seriousness  of  his  intention.  His  master, 
though  sometimes  angry  enough  with 
him,  recognized  the  immense  services  that 
he  had  rendered,  and  had  no  thought  of 
letting  him  go. 

Like  other  statesmen  of  the  first  rank, 
Bismarck  followed  in  the  main  a  simple 
policy,  even  if  his  contemporaries  could 
not  be  expected  to  realize  this.  He  was 
infinitely  resourceful  in  detail,  keeping 
open  various  possibilities  and  ready  to 


BISMARCK  29 


/ 


change  on  the  instant,  if  need  be,  from 
one  course  of  action  to  another;  he  was 
never  off  his  guard,  and  was  constantly 
puzzhng  and  bewildering  his  opponents; 
but  at  bottom  his  aims  and  ambitions 
were  not  complicated.  Now  that  Ger- 
man unity  had  been  achieved  in  the  form 
he  desired,  with  Prussian  supremacy  and 
the  exclusion  of  Austria,  now  that  France 
had  been  defeated  and  deprived  of  her 
German  territories,  he  regarded  his  crea- 
tion as  complete.  Henceforth  it  was  not 
his  object  to  add  to  the  stately  fabric  he 
had  erected.  He  confined  himself  to 
strengthening  it  and  to  putting  it  in  a 
position  to  weather  future  storms.  He 
strove  to  consolidate  the  new  empire,  to 
make  its  inhabitants  feel  its  advantages, 
to  win  over  the  discontented  elements,  to 
stimulate  its  economic  development,  to 
keep  up  its  military  strength  at  the  high- 
est point  of  efficiency,  but  there  is  no 
proof  that  he  seriously  harbored  designs 
of  further  extending  its  borders.     Here 


30  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

we  have  one  of  his  remarkable  character- 
istics. In  spite  of  successes  sufficient  to 
turn  the  coolest  head,  his  ambitions  re- 
mained what  they  had  been,  and  in  spite 
of  the  aggressiveness  of  his  manner  and 
the  roughness,  if  need  be,  of  his  means, 
he  was  essentially  a  moderate  as  well  as 
a  conservative.  The  most  famous  proof 
of  this  in  his  career  was  his  single-handed 
opposition  to  the  desire  of  the  king  and 
of  the  whole  Prussian  army  to  exact  ter- 
ritory from  Austria  after  the  victory  of 
Sadowa.  By  a  desperate  effort  he  had  tri- 
umphed, and  his  countrymen  have  since 
been  unanimous  in  recognizing  the  ex- 
traordinary wisdom  of  his  views  on  this 
occasion.  Toward  France  he  did  not  dis- 
play and  could  not  be  expected  to  display 
the  same  moderation,  but  he  had  serious 
doubts  as  to  the  advisability  of  taking  the 
French  part  of  Lorraine.  In  this  case  he 
yielded  to  the  arguments  of  the  military 
authorities,  perhaps  thinking  that  as 
France  would  be  irreconcilable  anyway. 


BISMARCK  31 


it  was  needless  to  try  to  conciliate  her. 
Even  admitting  that  his  imagination  may 
occasionally  have  played  with  the  possi- 
bility of  fresh  conquests,*  the  policy  he 
followed  in  his  later  years  was  one  of 
peace.  As  a  statesman  he  belonged  to 
the  school  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  of 
Talleyrand,  not  to  that  of  Napoleon.  He 
lacked,  indeed,  a  certain  kind  of  imagina- 
tion, and  this  sometimes  prevented  his 
understanding  the  forces  opposed  to  him. 
Thus  in  the  famous  Kulturkampf,  which 
was  soon  to  break  out,  he  long  failed  to 
grasp  the  real  strength  of  the  modern 

*  Beust,  ^us  drei  Viertel-J ahrhunderten,  ii,  pp.  480, 48 1 .  (At 
Gastein,  August,  1871):  "We  also  spoke  of  the  German  prov- 
inces of  Austria,  and  Prince  Bismarck,  strongly  disclaimed  any 
desire  of  acquiring  these  provinces  for  the  German  Em- 
pire. ...  I  do  not  question  the  sincerity  of  these  objections, 
but  I  cannot  forget  another  circumstance  in  connection  with 
this  subject.  *I  would  rather,'  Bismarck  told  me,  'annex 
Holland  to  Germany.'  When  I  entered,  some  months  later, 
on  my  post  as  ambassador  in  London,  the  new  Dutch  am- 
bassador, with  whom  I  had  formerly  been  acquainted,  arrived 
at  the  same  time.  He  had  hitherto  been  amt)assador  in 
Berlin.  The  first  thing  he  told  me  was  that  Bismarck  had 
reassured  him  as  to  the  rumor  that  Germany  wished  to  annex 
Holland,  by  saying  that  he  would  greatly  prefer  the  German 
provinces  of  Austria." 


32  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

Catholic  church.  When  he  did  make  the 
discovery,  he  extricated  himself  with  his 
usual  skill  from  a  situation  that  had 
grown  too  difficult.  In  spite  of  brave 
words,  he  ended  by  going  to  Canossa,  but 
he  did  not  do  so  until  he  had  assured 
himself  of  a  very  different  reception 
from  Henry  IV's,  and  of  picking  up  a 
good  many  advantages  from  the  journey. 
Though  a  conservative  and  an  aristocrat, 
he  took  the  initiative  in  legislation  to 
ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  laboring 
classes,  and  set  an  example  to  Europe  for 
measures  of  state  socialism;  but  he  re- 
garded the  socialists  themselves  with  the 
most  narrow-minded  intolerance.  Geo- 
graphically, his  outlook  was  limited,  reach- 
ing little  beyond  the  European  continent. 
Even  England  he  never  completely  under- 
stood, and  he  looked  on  the  Eastern  Ques- 
tion as  one  that  did  not  touch  Germany 
directly  and  that,  therefore,  she  should 
keep  out  of.  For  lands  farther  away  he 
cared  nothing  at  all.     Great  as  he  was,  he 


BISMARCK  37, 


was  not  In  his  visions  ahead  of  his  times; 
indeed,  if  anything,  he  rather  lagged  be- 
hind them.  He  had  treated  the  Great 
Germany  idea  of  1848  as  a  fooUsh  Uto- 
pia, and  he  never  foresaw  that  the  gen- 
eration after  his  own  would  come  to  feel 
that  the  German  unity  he  had  founded 
was  not  complete  when  it  left  twenty 
million  Germans  outside  of  its  domain. 
Nor  did  he  realize  that  the  industrial  de- 
velopment of  the  empire  which  he  favored 
and  stimulated,  breaking  a  few  years  later 
with  his  liberal  supporters  and  turning 
from  Free  Trade  to  Protection,  would 
with  its  vast  increase  of  German  com- 
merce and  shipping  lead  to  the  building 
up  of  a  large  navy.  He  believed  such  a 
navy  to  be  a  useless  and  dangerous  lux- 
ury. In  his  old  age  he  yielded  to  a  public 
opinion  that  had  gone  beyond  him,  and 
entered  upon  a  policy  of  the  acquisition 
of  German  colonies,  but  although  in  the 
diplomatic  controversies  to  which  his  ac- 
tion gave  rise  he  held  his  own  with  his 


34  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

accustomed  skill  and  aggressiveness,  he 
had  no  ambition  for  a  colonial  empire;  he 
only  cared  for  trading-posts,  and  he 
grudged  expense  even  for  them. 
''  In  1 87 1  the  relations  of  Germany  with 
the  other  European  powers  were  in  the 
main  satisfactory.  England  Bismarck 
did  not  like,  and  he  resented  British  influ- 
ence at  the  German  court,  as  represented 
particularly  by  the  Crown  Princess  of 
Prussia.  In  discussions  with  England  his 
tone  was  frequently  sharp  rather  than 
conciliatory,  and  he  regarded  her  as  being 
too  much  interested  in  her  commerce  and 
in  her  colonial  affairs,  and  too  unreliable 
under  democratic  influences,  to  be  a  state 
that  could  be  counted  upon.  At  the 
same  time  he  did  not  feel  that  her  inter- 
ests were  antagonistic  to  those  of  Ger- 
many, and  would  have  deemed  a  serious 
quarrel  with  her  to  be  unnecessary  and 
foolish.  With  Russia  Germany  was  on 
intimate  terms,  even  if  the  personal  rela- 
tions between  the  two  chancellors  were 


BISMARCK  35 


perhaps  not  quite  so  friendly  as  they  once 
had  been.  With  Austria  the  first  steps 
to  a  reconciHation  had  already  been 
taken;  with  Italy  there  was  no  cause  for 
dispute.  The  one  land  whose  enmity 
must  be  accepted  as  a  permanent  fact  and 
appreciated  accordingly  was  France. 

With  his  usual  sound  judgment,  Prince 
Bismarck  realized  that  France  could  not 
be  expected  to  forgive  and  forget  the  war 
of  1870.  Her  loss  in  prestige  and  position 
were  in  themselves  hard  enough  for  a 
proud  nation  to  bear,  though  time  might 
heal  the  ordinary  wounds  of  the  conflict, 
including  in  this  case  the  payment  of  a 
huge  war  indemnity.  But  the  loss  of 
Alsace-Lorraine  was  not  a  thing  that  a 
people  like  the  French  could  accept  as 
final,  at  least  for  a  generation,  and  as 
long  as  it  was  not  accepted  there  would 
always  be  Frenchmen  who  would  wish  to 
seize  the  first  favorable  opportunity  for  a 
guerre  de  revanche.  This  being  so,  Bis- 
marck wasted  no  time  in  laments  or  illu- 


36  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

sions,  but  faced  the  situation  and  shaped 
his  plans  accordingly.  He  was  willing, 
when  it  suited  his  purposes,  to  assume  a 
polite,  nay,  even  a  benevolent,  attitude 
toward  France,  though  often  his  tone  was 
much  the  reverse,  but  as  she  was  always 

I  a  possible  enemy,  his  policy  was  in  the 
first  place  to  keep  her  weak  and  occupied 
with  home  affairs,  and  in  the  second  to 

.  keep  her  isolated. 

With  these  objects  in  view,  he  favored 
for  France  a  republic  as  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment that  would  suit  him  best.  Court 
circles  in  Berlin,  like  the  rest  of  aristo- 
cratic and  conservative  Europe,  would 
have  preferred  to  see  a  Bourbon  or  an 
Orleans  prince  restored  to  the  French 
throne,  but  such  sentimentality  did  not 
affect  Bismarck.  He  believed  that  a 
French  republic  would  be  weak  and  prob- 
ably distracted,  therefore  not  in  a  posi- 
tion to  desire  a  war,  still  less  to  carry  one 
on  successfully,  whereas  a  prince,  whether 
a  Bourbon  or  an  Orleans  or  a  Bonaparte, 


BISMARCK  37 


r 


would  feel  the  need  of  strengthening  his 
position  by  gaining  the  prestige  which 
only  a  successful  war  could  give  him. 
Undeterred,  therefore,  by  court  influ- 
ences, the  chancellor  showed  himself 
friendly  toward  the  French  republicans, 
and  he  even  seems  to  have  had  a  liking  for 
his  old  acquaintance,  President  Thiers. 
When  the  German  ambassador  in  Paris, 
Count  Harry  von  Arnim,  attempted  a 
policy  of  his  own  not  in  accordance  with 
the  prescribed  one,  he  was  recalled  from 
his  post,  tried  on  a  charge  of  retaining 
state  papers  in  his  own  possession,  and 
his  career  was  blasted. 

But  there  was  a  still  stronger  reason 
why  Bismarck  wished  to  see  a  republican 
government  in  France.  He  was  con- 
vinced that  a  republic  would  find  it  much 
more  difficult  than  a  monarchy  to  secure 
alliances  with  the  other  great  states  of 
the  continent,  all  of  which  were  monar- 
chies. As  against  France  alone,  the  Ger- 
man empire  bade  fair  to  be  able  hence- 


38  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

forth  to  hold  its  own.  It  was  already  the 
stronger  power  of  the  two,  and,  owing  to 
the  difference  in  birth  rate,  the  disparity 
between  them  would  become  steadily 
greater.  What  he  feared  was  an  anti- 
German  coalition,  and  almost  any  com- 
bination of  this  kind  appeared  to  him 
conceivable.  To  the  world  at  large  such 
a  danger  might  appear  remote  enough. 
The  German  empire  was  not  only  so  for- 
midable that  no  other  country  would 
lightly  dream  of  attacking  it,  it  was  also 
on  better  terms  with  the  others  than  was 
its  weak,  distracted  neighbor.  But  this 
was  not  enough  for  Bismarck.  Some 
years  later,  in  answer  to  the  charge,  "You 
have  the  nightmare  of  coalitions,"  he  said, 
"Yes,  necessarily."  *  He  remembered 
that  even  the  genius  of  Frederick  the 
Great  would  not  have  sufficed  to  save 
Prussia  in  the  Seven  Years'  war  but  for 
the  timely  death  of  the  most  dangerous 

*  Conversation  with  Count  P.  Shuvalov.     Gedanken  und 
Erinnerungen,  ii,  p.  224. 


BISMARCK  39 


of  the  king's  enemies,  the  Empress  EHza- 
beth.  And  a  new  aUiance  of  these  same 
powers — Russia,  Austria,  and  France — 
that  had  so  nearly  brought  Prussia  to  de- 
struction in  the  eighteenth  century,  was 
not  unthinkable  against  Germany  in  the 
nineteenth.  Nor  was  this  the  only  peril. 
In  1870  Austria  and  Italy  had  both 
been  disposed  to  draw  the  sword  against 
Prussia.  A  little  more  diplomatic  skill 
and  willingness  to  make  concessions  on 
the  part  of  Napoleon  III,  or  a  French 
victory  or  two  at  the  outset  of  the  war, 
might  well  have  led  to  a  triple  alliance 
with  which  even  the  armies  of  von  Moltke 
would  have  found  it  difficult  to  cope,  ex- 
cept, perhaps,  with  Russian  assistance,  an 
assistance  that  would  have  had  to  be  paid 
for  some  day.  It  was  true  that  since  Ger- 
many had  triumphed,  Austria  and  Italy 
had  hastened  to  express  their  friendliness 
and  to  put  far  from  them  all  thoughts 
of  hostility.  Bismarck's  old  antagonist, 
Count  Beust,  was  now  anxious  to  be  his 


40  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

friend.  But  the  chancellor  had  a  good 
memory,  and  he  looked  further  ahead  than 
the  mere  present,  however  glorious.  The 
friends  of  today  had  been  the  enemies  of 
yesterday,  and  might  be  the  enemies 
of  tomorrow.  No  precautions  could  be 
too  great  in  such  vital  matters.  At  the 
time  these  fears  appeared  without  foun- 
dation, but  the  events  of  recent  years 
have  shown  their  extraordinary  fore- 
sight. 

The  policy  of  Bismarck,  accordingly, 

was  to  keep   France   isolated  by   every 

means  at  his  command,  both  direct  and 

\  indirect.     Whether  he  happened  to  be  on 

bad  terms  with  the  government  at  Paris 

and  addressing  it  in  a  menacing  tone,  or 

whether  he  seemed  indifferent  and  openly 

contemptuous,   or  whether  he  was  just 

then  conciliatory  and  willing  to  do  favors, 

1  he  never  relaxed  in  his  efforts  to  prevent 

I  the  republic  from  finding  an  ally  in  any 

lother  great  power.     Circumstances  aided 

him,  and  as  long  as  he  remained  at  the 


THE  HOLY  ALLIANCE  41 


J 


helm,  France  did  not  succeed  in  emerging 
from  her  isolation. 

The  obvious  way  for  Germany  to  avoid  \ 
all  danger  of  a  hostile  coalition  was  to  1 
become,  herself,  a  member  of  some  alii-  ^ 
ance  so  strong  that  it  would  have  noth- 
ing to  fear  from  any  number  of  foes.  In 
the  memory  of  men  then  living,  there  had 
been  a  league  which,  after  it  had  over- 
thrown the  Corsican  conqueror  of  Europe, 
had  dominated  the  continent  and  had 
maintained  law  and  order  often  by  the 
mere  terror  of  its  name  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  immense  forces  at  its  disposal. 
The  union  of  Russia,  Austria,  and  Prus-  | 
sia,  given  a  mystical  consecration  in  1815 
by  the  so-called  Holy  Alliance,  had  lasted 
for  more  than  a  generation.  There  had 
been  occasional  friction  between  its  mem- 
bers, and  even  an  interruption  of  good  re- 
lations in  1829,  owing  to  divergences  over 
A  the  Eastern  Question,  but  the  Revolution 
\of  1830  in  Paris  had  brought  the  three  con- 
\servative  powers  together  once  more,  and 


42  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

they  lived  in  substantial  harmony  until 
the  outbreak  of  the  Crimean  war.  Since 
that  event,  to  be  sure,  intercourse  be- 
tween Austria  and  Russia  had  been 
devoid  of  cordiality,  and  Prussia  and 
Austria  had  actually  fought  against  one 
another  in  1866,  but  first  Russia  and 
then  Austria  had  had  her  lesson  and  had 
learned  by  it.  In  the  defeat  and  humilia- 
tion of  Austria,  Russia  had  her  revenge  for 
Austrian  ingratitude,  which  she  was  now 
willing  to  forget.  Austria,  on  her  part, 
after  her  own  disasters  and  that  of  France, 
was  in  a  somewhat  perilous  position,  in 
view  of  the  permanent  ill  will  of  Italy  and 
the  close  friendship  between  Berlin  and 
St.  Petersburg.  The  counsel  of  wisdom 
suggested  that  she  should  break  with  the 
past,  and,  frankly  accepting  her  present 
situation,  should  forgive  and  forget  what- 
ever grievances  she  had  entertained  against 
her  two  former  partners.  Instead,  there- 
fore, of  showing  resentment  when  the 
new  empire  was  proclaimed  at  Versailles, 


^  \ 


LEAGUE  OF  THE  THREE  EMPERORS         43 

Austria  gave  assurances  of  her  entire  sat- 
isfaction and  of  her  desire  to  be  on  the 
best  of  terms  with  the  Germany  to  which 
she  had  ceased  to  belong. 

This  was  what  Bismarck  wanted,  and 
he  now  reaped  the  reward  for  his  modera- 
tion in  1866.     No  other  combination  pos-' 
sessed  such  attractions  for  him  as  the- 
binding  together  of  the  old  allies  into  a\ 
new  League  of  the  Three  Emperors.     For,  \ 
as  long  as  this  league  should  last,  French  \ 
schemes  of  a  revanche  would  be  innocuous.  \ 
It  would  represent,  too,  not  merely  a  vast  I 
military   force,    but,    as    in   the   past,    a  I 
grouping  of  the  conservatives  of  Europe.    1 
And  Bismarck,  like  his  master,  was  thor- 
oughly conservative.     He  had  never  at 
heart  renounced  the  principles  which  as  a 
Prussian  Junker  he  had  proudly  defended 
in  his  early  days.     Even  if  he  had  more 
than    once    made    use    of   revolutionary 
forces  when  they  suited  his  purposes  and 
had  accepted  universal  suffrage  as  part  of 
the  foundations  of  the  new  German  em- 


44  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

pire,  to  the  great  realist  these  were  but 
means  to  his  ends,  and  he  used  them 
without  scruple  when  convenient.  None 
the  less,  he  remained  a  conservative. 
He  could  maintain  good  relations  with 
republics,  nay,  he  preferred  one  in  France, 
but  his  natural  friends  were  the  cham- 
pions of  the  altar  and  the  throne,  the  long- 
established  guardians  of  law  and  order, 
the  governments  that  ruled  their  people, 
not  those  that  were  ruled  by  them.*  It 
seemed  wise,  too,  in  view  of  the  recent 
alarming  growth  of  international  social- 
ism, for  the  conservative  powers  of  Eu- 
rope to  forget  their  dissensions  and  once 
more  emphasize  the  solidarity  of  their 
permanent  interests. 

On  August  II,  1 871,  at  Ischl  in  Austria, 
the  German  emperor  paid  a  visit  to  Em- 
peror Francis  Joseph.  A  few  days  later 
their  chancellors.  Prince  Bismarck  and 
Count  Beust,  came  together  in  confer- 
ence and  discussed  the  relations  of  the 

*  Gedanken  und  Erinnerungen,  ii,  p.  229. 


ANDRASSY  45 


two  empires,  and  interchanged  expres- 
sions of  mutual  good  will.  But  the  feud 
between  the  two  men  in  the  past  had  been 
too  bitter  for  them  to  have  any  real  con- 
fidence in  one  another.  It  was  only  when 
Beust,  the  Saxon,  had  been  succeeded  as 
foreign  minister  for  the  Dual  Empire  by 
Andrassy,  the  Magyar,  that  intimate  re- 
lations became  possible  between  the  Ball- 
platz  and  Wilhelmstrasse.  In  his  earlier 
years.  Count  Julius  Andrassy  had  been 
officially  hanged  in  effigy  as  a  rebel  and 
traitor.  He  was  now  the  representative 
of  the  triumph  of  Hungary  as  well  as  of 
the  new  direction  of  Austrian  policy.  In 
1870,  when  Hungarian  prime  minister,  he 
had  strongly  opposed  Austrian  participa- 
tion in  the  war  between  Prussia  and 
France.  He  was  also  on  good  personal 
terms  with  Bismarck.  We  have  it  on  his 
own  authority  that  from  the  start  he 
aimed  at  obtaining  for  Austria  admission 
as  a  third  party  into  the  intimacy  that 
existed   between   Russia   and   Germany, 


46  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

and  then  at  the  gradual  supplanting  of 
Russia  in  German  good  graces.* 

But  even  before  the  fall  of  Beust,  the 
next  step  had  been  taken  toward  draw- 
ing together  the  two  empires.  On  Sep- 
tember 7  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  re- 
turned at  Salzburg  the  visit  that  had  been 
paid  him  at  Ischl.  Etiquette  demanded 
that  the  next  visit  should  be  paid  by  the 
Austrian  emperor  in  Germany,  and  policy 
required  that  it  should  be  in  Berlin,  the 
capital  now  not  only  of  William  the 
Prussian  king,  but  of  William  the  Ger- 
man emperor.  This  public  tribute  to  the 
new  empire  of  his  Hohenzollern  rival 
must  have  cost  not  a  little  to  the  pride  of 
the  heir  of  the  Hapsburgs,  whose  house 
had  so  long  borne  the  imperial  crown. 
But  whatever  the  sacrifice  was,  Francis 
Joseph  resolved  to  make  it.  Friendly  re- 
lations could  be  had  on  no  other  terms. 
It  was  arranged,  therefore,  that  he  should 
come  to  Berlin  in  state,  accompanied  by 

*  Wertheimer,  GraJ  Julius  Andrdssy,  iii,  p.  226. 


TEE    THREE  EMPERORS  AT  BERLIN  47 

his  new  foreign  minister,  who  had  already 
had  a  meeting  with  Bismarck. 

The  news  of  the  intended  visit  may  well 
have  awakened  some  apprehension  and 
jealousy  at  St.  Petersburg,  as  perhaps 
foreshadowing  a  change  in  Prussian,  now 
German,  policy.  At  any  rate,  it  was  not 
for  the  interest  of  Russia  to  see  herself 
supplanted  at  Berlin  in  her  position  of 
best  friend.  For  this  or  for  other  rea- 
sons. Tsar  Alexander,  when  informed  offi- 
cially of  what  was  to  take  place,  asked: 
"Why  am  I  not  wanted,  too.?"*  Of 
course,  there  could  be  but  one  answer, 
and  with  all  speed  he  was  sent  a  cordial 
invitation. 

From  the  5th  to  the  i  ith  of  September, 
1872,  the  three  emperors  and  their  foreign 
ministers  met  in  the  German  capital  amid 
high  festival,  while  Europe  looked  on 
and  wondered  what  might  be  the  intent 


*  The  Tsar  was  urged  to  take  this  step  in  a  confidential  letter 
he  received  from  his  former  German  teacher,  Schneider.  It  is 
possible  that  Bismarck  instigated  the  letter. 


48  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

and  the  scope  of  their  conversations. 
These  conversations  resuhed  in  a  gen- 
eral agreement,  but  the  entente  thus 
concluded  did  not  take  the  form  of  a 
written  aUiance.  The  sovereigns  and 
their  ministers,  instead  of  formal  confer- 
ences, held  a  number  of  separate  inter- 
views, during  which  they  exchanged  ex- 
pressions of  good  will  and  assurances  of 
mutual  support.  They  also  explained 
their  policies  to  one  another  and  made 
clear  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  inten- 
tions of  any  one  of  them  to  which  the 
others  might  fairly  object.  The  attitude 
of  Austria  was  naturally  more  reserved 
than  that  of  Russia  and  of  Germany,  for 
she  was  in  the  position  of  a  former  enemy 
just  admitted  to  the  society  of  two  old 
friends.*  Nevertheless,  the  Austrians  had 
no  cause  for  complaint  in  the  way  they 
were  received,  and  they  were,  or  fancied 
they  were,  the  objects  of  more  popular 
acclamation  than  the  Russians. f 

*  Broglie,  La  Mission  de  M.  de  Gontaut-Biron,  p.  45. 
I  Wertheimer,  ii,  p.  77. 


GERMANY,  RUSSIA,  AND  AUSTRIA  49 

The  old  league  of  the  three  great  con- 
servative European  states  was  thus  re- 
constituted, more  powerful,  more  impos- 
ing, than  ever.  Again  it  dominated  the 
continent.  Not  only  was  the  combined 
strength  of  its  armies  incomparably  supe- 
rior to  any  force  that  could  be  brought 
against  them,  but  as  long  as  it  lasted  each 
of  its  members  could  feel  safe  against  at- 
tack by  land.  But  there  was  one  very 
important  new  feature  to  the  league. 
The  relative  position  of  the  three  allies 
had  changed  profoundly  since  the  days 
they  had  first  gone  hand  in  hand  with 
each  other.  When,  in  1815,  Tsar  Alex- 
ander I  had  formed  the  Holy  Alliance, 
there  was  no  doubt  that  he  was  its  most 
powerful  sovereign  and  leading  spirit, 
even  if  in  subsequent  years  he  came  under 
the  influence  of  the  Austrian  chancellor. 
Prince  Metternich.  In  the  time  of  Nich- 
olas I  the  primacy  of  Russia  was  clearer 
still,  so  much  so  that  after  1849  Austria 
and  Prussia  were  almost  in  a  dependent 
position.     Prussia,  indeed,  had  through- 


50  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

out  been  the  weakest  of  the  three  aUies,  a 
docile  follower  of  the  other  two;  she  had 
never  taken  the  lead  In  their  joint  policy. 

In  1872  the  situation  in  this  respect  was 
different.  It  was  evident  to  the  whole 
world  that  the  mightiest  of  the  three  em- 
pires was  that  of  Germany  and  the  first  of 
their  statesmen  was  the  German  chan- 
cellor. It  was  Germany  that  had  brought 
together  the  other  two  members  of  the 
league,  and  it  was  in  Berlin  that  the  gen- 
eral reconciliation  had  been  effected. 
Whatever  else  this  renewal  of  former  in- 
timacies might  mean,  it  meant  without 
question  one  more  brilliant  achievement 
for  the  policy  of  Prince  Bismarck. 

The  next  few  months  served  to 
strengthen  his  position  even  more.  In 
May,  1873,  together  with  his  sovereign 
and  with  von  Moltke,  he  paid  a  visit  to 
St.  Petersburg,  where  he  found  many  old 
acquaintances  from  his  days  as  Prussian 
minister  there  eleven  years  before.  He 
now  came  as  the  lion  of  the  hour,  enter- 


BISMARCK  AT  ST.   PETERSBURG  51 

tained  and  run  after  by  all  the  highest  so- 
ciety of  the  city.  In  return  he  had  no 
hesitation  in  recognizing  the  debt  that  he 
and  his  country  owed  to  Russia,  and  is 
said  to  have  declared  before  his  depar- 
ture: "Si  j'admettais  seulement  la  pensee 
d'etre  jamais  hostile  a  I'Empereur  et  a 
la  Russie,  je  me  considererais  comme  un 
traitre."  *  His  master  went  even  further 
and  concluded  a  treaty  of  alliance  with 
Alexander  II,  which  was  countersigned 
by  the  two  field-marshals,  von  Moltke 
and  Bariatinski,  but  to  which  Bismarck 
refused  to  append  his  signature,  giv- 
ing as  his  excuse  that  he  objected  to 
"binding  conventions  in  circumstances 
where  there  was  as  yet  no  positive  object 
in  view."t  Almost  immediately  after  the 
departure  of  their  German  guests,  Tsar 
Alexander  and  Prince  Gorchakov  went  by 
invitation  to  visit  the  Vienna  Exhibition 
of  1873.     Fresh  expressions  of  good  will 

*  Tatishchev,  Alexander  II,  ii,  p.  100. 

f  Moritz  Busch,  Bismarck,  some  Secret  Pages,  ii,  pp.  480, 481. 


52  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

were  exchanged,  matters  of  common  in- 
terest were  discussed  in  the  most  amicable 
spirit,  and  an  agreement  was  concluded 
which  may  be  regarded  as  a  counterpart 
of  the  one  between  Russia  and  Germany 
at  St.  Petersburg.*  Emperor  William, 
also,  in  his  turn  came  to  Vienna,  and  an- 
other distinguished  guest  appeared  in  the 
person  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  king  of  the 
Italy  so  long  bitterly  hostile  to  Austria, 
and  so  recently  united  at  her  expense. 
His  visit  showed  at  least  a  desire  to  estab- 
lish better  relations  between  the  two 
states;  and  as  he  followed  it  up  with  one 
to  Berlin,  where  he  met  with  a  cordial 
reception,  the  Italian  kingdom  seemed  to 
be  following  in  the  orbit  of  the  three  em- 
pires. Great  Britain,  though  unenthusi- 
astic,  was  friendly;  France  could  only 
look  on,  lonely  and  helpless. 

The  diplomatic  triumph  of  Bismarck 
was  thus  complete,  and  he  could  have  lit- 
tle to  fear  from  any  foreign  quarter.     At 

*  Wertheimer,  ii,  p.  89. 


THE  KULTURKAMPF  53 

home,  on  the  other  hand,  matters  were 
not  going  to  his  taste,  for  he  was  in  the 
thick  of  a  struggle  with  the  Cathohc 
church,  the  so-called  Kulturkampf,  a  con- 
flict into  which  he  had  entered  without 
realizing  the  enormous  latent  power  of  his 
adversary.  The  more  deeply  he  became 
involved,  the  worse  became  the  difficulties 
that  it  brought  upon  him,  and  the  less 
the  prospect  of  a  satisfactory  issue.  This 
told  upon  his  nerves.  He  was  also  much 
irritated  by  the  opposition  he  encoun- 
tered in  various  other  quarters,  and  he 
especially  resented  the  intrigues,  real  or 
imaginary,  spun  against  him  by  the 
Empress  Augusta  and  her  friends.  His 
health,  as  well  as  his  temper,  was  affected 
by  all  this;  so  that  he  more  than  once 
threatened  to  resign,  and  perhaps  seri- 
ously thought  of  doing  so. 

Meanwhile  the  rapid  recovery  of  France 
had  first  astonished  and  then  angered  and 
alarmed  the  Germans.  The  French  had 
paid  off  their  tremendous  war  indemnity 


54  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

with  unexpected  facility;  and  now  that 
their  territory  was  evacuated  by  the  en- 
emy, they  were  building  up,  in  spite  of 
the  storms  of  their  internal  politics,  a  new 
army  on  a  firmer  basis  and  a  larger  scale 
than  ever  before.  This  army  was  in- 
tended primarily  for  purposes  of  defence 
— French  policy  in  those  days  was  nothing 
if  not  timid — and  it  was  still  no  match 
for  that  of  Germany.  Nevertheless,  this 
too  rapid  recuperation  awakened  displea- 
sure and  anxiety,  especially  among  the 
German  military  authorities,  who  were 
inclined  to  argue  that,  however  peaceful 
the  intentions  of  France  might  be  for  the 
moment,  yet,  as  she  had  not  abandoned 
the  hope  of  getting  back  Alsace-Lorraine, 
she  would  profit  by  the  first  favorable  op- 
portunity to  undertake  a  war  of  revenge. 
Granting  that  such  was  the  case,  would  it 
not  be  wise  for  Germany  to  provoke  a 
conflict  now,  before  France  had  recov- 
ered her  full  strength  or  had  found  an 
ally,  and  then,  after  defeating  her  a  second 


THE  WAR  SCARE  OF   1875  55 

time,  to  impose  upon  her  terms  that 
would  render  her  harmless  for  the  future  ? 
Such  reasoning  was  not  unnatural,  and 
there  is  little  question  that  both  at  this 
time  and  later  several  of  the  military- 
leaders,  including  von  Moltke  himself, 
desired  another  war.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  no  ground  for  thinking  that  the 
emperor  had  any  intentions  of  the  sort. 
He  wished  to  end  his  days  in  peace.  Bis- 
marck's position  is  not  so  clear.  Several 
times  in  his  memoirs  and  elsewhere  he 
expressed  his  disapproval  of  *  preventive 
wars.'  On  some  other  occasions  his  tone 
was  different.* 

Early  in  1875,  Europe  was  startled  by  a 
sudden  war  scare,  an  episode  whose  true 
significance  has  not  been  entirely  cleared 
up    to   the    present    day.     In    February 


*  Denkwiirdigkeiten  des  Furs  ten  Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, 
n,  p.  107  (February  i8,  1874):  "Bismarck:  'We  want  to  keep 
the  peace;  but  if  France  goes  on  arming  so  that  she  is  to  be 
ready  in  five  years,  and  bent  on  war  at  the  end  of  that  time, 
then  we  will  declare  war  in  three  years.'  This  he  had  told 
them  quite  plainly." 


56  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

Count  von  Radowltz,  one  of  the  trusted 
servants  of  the  chancellor,  and  newly 
appointed  minister  to  Greece,  was  des-: 
patched  on  a  special  mission  to  St.  Pe- 
tersburg. According  to  Bismarck's  un- 
convincing later  explanation,  he  was  sent 
to  straighten  out  certain  matters  in  the 
machinery  of  the  diplomatic  relations 
between  the  two  capitals.  It  has  been 
charged,  however,  and  there  is  reason  for 
believing,  that  the  real  object  of  the  mis- 
sion was  to  obtain  for  Germany,  in  return 
for  a  promise  of  support  in  the  Eastern 
Question,  a  free  hand  from  Russia  in  case 
of  war  against  France,  but  that  this  object 
was  not  attained.  At  any  rate,  the 
French  foreign  minister,  the  Due  De- 
cazes,  was  disturbed,  and  on  March  ii 
communicated  his  fears  to  Lord  Lyons, 
the  British  ambassador  in  Paris.*  On  the 
following  day  the  French  Chamber  voted 
a  bill  which  had  been  under  consideration 
for  some  time,  to  add  a  fourth  battalion 

*  Lord  Newton,  Lord  Lyons,  ii,  p.  68. 


THE  WAR  SCARE  OF  1875  S7 

to  each  regiment.  It  was  in  vain  that 
France  declared  that  her  intentions  were 
purely  defensive  and  that  she  was  not 
materially  increasing  her  armament;  pub- 
lic opinion  in  Germany  was  inclined  to 
regard  the  measure  as  a  menacing  if  not 
hostile  act.  On  the  8th  of  April  the  Ber- 
lin Post,  a  newspaper  supposed  to  be  on 
good  terms  with  the  authorities,  published 
a  violent  article  entitled  ''War  in  Sight." 
Three  days  later  the  article  was  repro- 
duced without  contradiction  by  the  North 
German  Gazette,  which,  as  was  well  known, 
was  often  inspired  by  the  foreign  office. 
The  French  government  now  felt  serious 
alarm,  an  alarm  which  was  heightened  by 
the  report  of  the  Due  de  Gontaut-Biron, 
ambassador  in  Berlin,  that  in  conversa- 
tion with  him  at  a  banquet,  von  Radowitz 
had  discussed  the  ethics  of  'preventive 
wars'  and  had  expressed  the  opinion  that 
Germany  would  be  justified  on  grounds  of 
humanity  as  well  as  of  policy  in  begin- 
ning hostilities  with   France   instead  of 


58  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

waiting  until  France  had  recovered 
enough  strength  to  attack  with  better 
prospect  of  success.  Bismarck  later  de- 
clared that  Radowltz  carried  his  wine 
badly  and  was  in  the  habit  of  talking  non- 
sense after  a  banquet,  but  in  view  of  the 
strict  discipline  the  chancellor  kept  among 
his  subordinates,  it  is  unlikely  that  one  of 
them  would  venture  so  far  on  his  own 
authority,  and  there  is  no  sign  that  Rad- 
owitz  was  ever  reproved  for  his  loquacity 
on  this  occasion.  Nor  were  his  remarks 
the  only  ones  to  cause  anxiety.  Reports 
came  in  from  several  quarters  of  menacing 
language  held  by  Bismarck,  by  Moltke, 
and  by  German  diplomats  at  foreign 
courts.  On  May  5  Prince  Hohenlohe, 
ambassador  at  Paris,  made  a  formal  com- 
munication to  the  Due  Decazes  that  'the 
German  government  was  not  entirely 
convinced  of  the  inoffensive  character 
of  the  French  armaments,'  and  that 
*the  German  general  staff  considers  war 
against  Germany  as  the  ultimate  object 


THI}   WAR  SCARE  OF  1875  59 


of  those  armaments,  and  so  looks  forward 
to  their  consequences.'*  The  chancellor 
was  feeling  just  then  particularly  harassed 
by  various  difficulties  that  beset  him,  and 
on  this  account,  or  as  a  tactical  move  and 
means  of  pressure,  on  May  4  he  asked 
permission  of  the  emperor  to  retire  from 
office  to  take  care  of  his  shattered  health. 
The  permission  was  not  granted,  and  was 
hardly  meant  to  be. 

Meanwhile  the  French  had  wasted  no 
time,  but  had  appealed  for  support  in 
pressing  terms  at  both  London  and  St. 
Petersburg.  On  April  15  General  LeFlo, 
their  ambassador  in  St.  Petersburg,  had 
communicated  his  fears  and  those  of  his 
government  to  the  Tsar,  who  had  reas- 
sured him  and  declared  that  during  a 
visit  he  was  about  to  make  to  Berlin  he 
would  clear  up  everything.  England,  too, 
promised  to  add  her  influence  to  that  of 
Russia  to  check  any  hostile  designs  on  the 

*  A.  Dreux,  Demieres  annees  de  Vambassade  en  Allemagne 
de  M.  de  Gontaut-Btron,  pp.  io8,  109. 


6o  TEE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

part  of  Bismarck.  On  May  6  the  London 
Times  startled  the  world  by  an  article, 
based  on  information  secretly  furnished 
by  the  Due  Decazes,  which  revealed  to 
the  public  the  gravity  of  the  crisis.  The 
storm,  however,  soon  blew  over.  On 
May  lo  Alexander  II  and  Gorchakov  ar- 
rived in  Berlin.  When  the  Tsar  took  up 
the  matter.  Emperor  William  declared 
emphatically  that  he  had  no  thought  of 
war  with  France.  Bismarck,  too,  treated 
the  whole  affair  as  a  newspaper  excite- 
ment and  a  plot  on  the  part  of  his  ene- 
mies to  discredit  him,  but  he  had  to  sub- 
mit to  being  lectured  by  Gorchakov,  and 
had  also  to  listen  to  official  exhortations 
from  the  British  ambassador.  He  was 
not  the  man  to  relish  such  a  lesson,  and 
he  was  further  exasperated  by  a  diplo- 
matic circular  of  Gorchakov  announcing 
that  "peace  is  now  assured,"  a  bit  of 
needless  vanity  which  Bismarck  never 
forgave. 
The  whole  Incident  of  the  'war  scare  of 


THE  WAR  SCARE  OF  187s  61 

1875'  remains  mysterious.  Most  Ger- 
man writers  have  accepted  Bismarck's  as- 
surances on  the  subject.  Many  French- 
men and  some  other  foreigners  have  ac- 
cused him  of  having  planned  mischief,  but 
of  having  been  foiled  by  the  intervention 
of  Russia  and  England.*  We  may  well 
believe  that  Emperor  William  was  inno- 
cent of  warlike  intentions  at  this  time, 
but  the  chancellor  was  capable  of  creating 
a  situation  which  would  force  his  master's 
hand.  He  may  have  been  feeling  the  pulse 
of  France  for  his  own  purposes  without 
having  made  up  his  mind  as  to  his  fu- 
ture course  of  action;  he  may  merely  have 
intended  to  browbeat  her;  he  may,  per- 
haps, as  was  feared  in  Paris,  have  thought 
of  sending  an  ultimatum  demanding  a 
reduction  of  French  armaments,  a  de- 
mand which  the  French  were  determined 

*  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  an  unusually  well  informed  and  com- 
petent observer,  declared  a  dozen  years  later:  "There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  ...  in  1875,  when  Russia  prevented  a  war 
between  Germany  and  France,  and  England  took  credit  for 
having  done  so,  Germany  could  have  crushed  her  rival." 
— Present  Position  of  European  Politics,  p.  37. 


62  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

to  refuse  at  all  risks,  and  which  they 
would  have  regarded  as  tantamount  to  a 
declaration  of  war.  The  truth  will  prob- 
ably never  be  known  with  certainty. 
What  is  certain  is  that  at  London  and 
St.  Petersburg  (though  not  at  Vienna, 
which  maintained  an  attitude  of  reserve) 
both  the  sovereigns*  and  their  ministers, 
after  first  treating  French  alarms  as 
groundless,  became  convinced  that  there 
was  serious  reason  for  anxiety  and  acted 
accordingly.  Even  some  persons  in  Ger- 
many entertained  the  same  fear,  among 
them  the  Crown  Prince. f 

Matters  soon  settled  down,  and  In  out- 
ward appearance  the  League  of  the  Three 
Emperors  was  unaffected  by  what  had 
passed.  In  reality,  the  effects  were  last- 
ing, especially  upon  Prince  Bismarck. 
To  begin  with,  it  had  been  made  clear  to 
him  that  in  case  of  another  Franco-Ger- 

*  After  the  incident  was  closed,  Queen  Victoria  had  some 
correspondence  with  Emperor  William  on  the  subject. 

t  Mrs.  Wemyss,  Memoirs  and  Letters  of  Sir  Robert  Morier,  ii, 
P-  350- 


GERMANY  AND  RUSSIA  63 

man  war  Germany  could  not  count  again 
on  the  moral  support  or  even  the  inaction 
of  Russia.  Friendly  as  Alexander  II  was 
to  Germany,  it  was,  after  all,  plainly 
against  the  interest  of  Russia  that  France 
should  once  more  be  crushed  and  still 
further  weakened.  The  Tsar  had  now 
shown  that  he  understood  this  and  wished 
to  maintain  the  existence  of  France  as  a 
great  power,  however  inconvenient  such 
an  existence  might  be  to  Germany.  Sec- 
ondly, Bismarck  was  not  the  man  to  for- 
get a  bad  turn  and  still  less  a  humiliation. 
From  now  on  he  bore  a  grudge  against 
his  former  friend,  Prince  Gorchakov. 

As  long  as  no  serious  conflict  of  interest 
arose  between  the  three  imperial  partners 
in  the  League,  some  divergency  of  views 
and  the  personal  pique  of  their  ministers 
might  not  be  of  consequence.*     But  who 

*  Sir  Robert  Morier,  after  seeing  Gorchakov  at  Wildbad  in 
June,  wrote  (Memoirs,  ii,  p.  362):  "It  is  clear  that  in  the 
'happy  family'  of  the  three  Kaisers,  each  of  the  'mutual 
friends'  is  endeavoring  to  convince  the  public  that  he  has 
an  exclusive  monopoly  of  the  affections  of  No.  3." 


64  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

could  tell  when  such  a  conflict  might 
arise  ?  There  was  one  domain  where 
jealousy  between  Russia  and  Austria 
dated  back  to  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  where  there  was  al- 
ways at  least  latent  antagonism  between 
them,  and  where  every  disturbance  of  the 
status  quo  at  once  threatened  to  bring 
their  interests  into  sharp  collision.  Twice 
before  in  the  last  fifty  years  the  alliance 
of  the  conservative  powers  had  been  dis- 
rupted by  the  affairs  of  Turkey,  and  now 
once  more,  in  the  summer  of  1875,  came 
the  news  that  a  rising  had  occurred  in  the 
Turkish  province  of  Herzegovina,  and 
that  Europe  must  again  face  the  incalcu- 
lable difficulties  and  dangers  inseparable 
from  a  reopening  of  the  Eastern  Question. 


CHAPTER   II 

The  Eastern  Question,  that  cause  of 
such  perplexities  to  statesmen  and  of  so 
much  bloodshed  among  peoples,  may  be 
said  to  have  begun  with  the  beginning  of 
European  history.  The  story  of  the  hos- 
tility between  Europe  and  Asia,  and  of  the 
struggles  for  predominance  in  the  lands  of 
the  eastern  Mediterranean,  can  be  traced 
back  in  the  first  pages  of  Herodotus  to  the 
semi-mythical  piratical  expeditions  that 
culminated  in  the  Trojan  war,  and  it  can 
be  followed  down  through  the  ages  to  the 
conflict  between  Austria  and  Serbia  in 
1914,  which  has  involved  in  its  gigantic 
extension  one-half  the  population  of  the 
world. 

In  the  course  of  the  centuries  the  tide 
of  conquest  has  surged  to  and  fro.  Per- 
sia invaded  Europe  but  was  beaten  back; 
Europe,  as  represented  by  Alexander  of 

6s 


66  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

Macedon  and  later  by  Rome,  overran  and 
subdued  western  Asia,  which,  with  North 
Africa,  became  part  of  Europe  in  history 
and  culture  and  remained  so  for  many 
generations.  With  the  rise  of  Islam  the 
reaction  set  in.  In  the  seventh  century 
the  Arabs  won  back  Syria  and  North 
Africa  to  Asia,  and  subjugated  Spain  and 
even  a  part  of  France.  In  the  eleventh, 
the  Seljuk  Turks  broke  the  power  of  the 
Byzantine  empire  and  conquered  Asia 
Minor.  In  the  fourteenth,  the  Ottoman 
Turks  crossed  into  Europe,  and  by  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  they  had  built  up 
a  dominion  reaching  from  the  Persian 
Gulf  almost  to  the  Strait  of  Gibraltar 
and  up  into  the  borders  of  Austria. 

Then  the  tide  turned  once  more.  The 
Turks,  after  a  last  great  offensive  move- 
ment, which  brought  their  hosts  in  1683 
to  the  walls  of  Vienna,  met  with  defeat 
there  at  the  hands  of  the  Polish  king, 
John  Sobieski.  This  disaster  was  quickly 
followed  by  others,  and  by  the  time  of  the 


THE  DECLINE  OF   TURKEY  67 


Peace  of  Passarowitz,  in  171 8,  after  an- 
other calamitous  war  with  Austria,  the 
Ottoman  empire  from  being  a  terror  to 
its  neighbors  bade  fair  to  become  their 
prey.  Already,  two  centuries  ago,  peo- 
ple were  talking  of  its  extinction  in 
Europe  as  a  likely  event  of  the  near 
future. 

With  the  decline  of  the  power  of  the 
Turks,  which  has  continued  with  little 
interruption  to  the  present  day,  and  has 
been  marked  by  oft-repeated  loss  of  terri- 
tory, the  Eastern  Question  entered  into 
a  new  phase.  It  has  not  been  confined  to 
the  relations  between  them  and  the  vari- 
ous claimants  to  their  heritage.  The  re- 
lations of  those  claimants  to  one  another 
have  played  an  equal  and  often  greater 
part.  By  an  extraordinary  historical  co- 
incidence, the  years  in  which  the  Turks 
were  first  being  defeated  and  shorn  of 
lands  they  were  never  to  regain,  witnessed 
also  the  sudden  appearance  upon  the 
scene  of  European  politics  of  a  new  state 


68  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

destined  henceforth  to  be  a  perpetual 
menace  to  them.  A  few  months  before 
the  siege  and  deliverance  of  Vienna,  Peter 
the  Great  had  ascended  the  throne  of 
Russia.  When  he  came  to  manhood  his 
first  important  act  was  to  wrest  from  the 
Turks  the  port  of  Azov  and  obtain  access 
to  the  waters  of  the  Black  Sea.  Ever 
since  then  Russia,  which  under  the  iron 
hand  of  Peter  assumed  at  least  the  out- 
ward semblance  of  a  European  state  pro- 
vided with  a  modern  governmental  ma- 
chine and  army  and  diplomatic  service, 
has  taken  a  foremost  part  in  the  affairs  of 
the  Near  East.  But  she  has  not  had  the 
field  to  herself.  She  has  from  the  first 
met  not  only  foes  but  rivals,  and  her  chief 
rival  has  been  Austria.  Little  as  they 
have  liked  it,  Russia  and  Austria,  in  all 
their  calculations  and  plans  in  regard  to 
Turkey  and  later  to  the  Christian  states 
of  the  Balkans,  have  had  to  take  each 
other  into  account  for  the  last  two  hun- 
dred years.     Their  ambitions  and  inter- 


RUSSIA   AND   TURKEY  69 

ests  have  continually  come  into  conflict, 
and  the  two  powers  have  been  often 
enough  on  the  verge  of  war  with  one  an- 
other. It  is,  in  truth,  a  remarkable  fact, 
that,  critical  as  the  situation  has  been  be- 
tween them,  jealous  as  they  have  shown 
themselves  of  one  another,  they  have 
never  actually  come  to  blows  until  the 
world  conflict  of  1914.* 

The  almost  permanent  hostility  be- 
tween Russia  and  Turkey,  who  are  at  war 
with  one  another  for  the  tenth  time,  has 
been  based  on  causes  historical,  religious, 
social,  and  economic.  The  Turk  has  been 
the  successor  of  the  Tartars,  the  former 
masters  of  the  Russians,  who  even  at  the 
time  of  Peter  the  Great  as  Turkish  vas- 
sals held  the  whole  territory  north  of  the 
Black  Sea.  The  Turk  has  been  the  infi- 
del, the  Asiatic,  under  whose  tyranny 
millions  of  Christians,  the  Orthodox 
brethren  of  the  Russians  and  many  of 

*  The  nominal  hostilities  between  them  on  two  occasions 
during  the  Napoleonic  period  can  hardly  be  termed  war. 


70  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

them  fellow  Slavs,  have  groaned  and  suf- 
fered for  centuries.  The  Russians  on 
their  part  have  regarded  their  country  as 
the  successor  and  avenger  of  the  Byzan- 
tine empire,  destined  to  erect  the  cross 
once  more  on  the  cathedral  of  St.  Sophia, 
and  to  liberate  Greek  Orthodox  Christen- 
dom, and  especially  the  oppressed  Balkan 
Slavs,  from  Paynim  rule.  As  the  popula- 
tion of  Russia  has  increased,  it  has  ex- 
panded southward  into  the  prairie  lands, 
richer  and  more  fertile  than  the  northern 
forests,  but  it  has  only  been  able  to  make 
its  way  by  driving  back  the  Tartar  and 
the  Turk.  Even  yet  it  has  not  reached 
open  water.  In  order  to  gain  access  to 
western  Europe,  the  great  and  growing 
maritime  commerce  of  the  regions  north 
and  east  of  the  Black  Sea  must  pass 
through  channels  still  in  foreign  hands. 
Russia  has  grown  to  greatness  largely  at 
the  expense  of  the  Turks,  and  it  seems 
impossible  that  she  should  have  perma- 
nently good  relations  with  them  as  long 


RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY  71 

as  the  entrance  to  the  Black  Sea  remains 
under  their  control.  Again  and  again  the 
Eastern  Question  has  been  the  chief  of 
her  interests.  She  has  often  not  known 
her  own  mind;  she  has  made  her  fair 
share  of  costly  blunders;  but,  in  the  main, 
her  policy  has  been  consistent,  and  has 
been  dictated,  though  at  times  uncon- 
sciously, by  natural  laws  as  well  as  by  the 
sympathies  of  her  people.  Only  occasion- 
ally and  for  short  intervals  has  she  posed 
as  the  friend  and  defender  of  the  Turk. 

The  chief  disadvantage  with  which 
Russia  has  had  to  contend  has  been  the 
distances  that  her  forces  have  had  to 
traverse  before  they  could  arrive  at  the 
scene  of  action.  They  have  had  to  oper- 
ate from  remote  bases  and  to  overcome 
one  line  of  defence  after  another.  But 
these  drawbacks  have  diminished  as  her 
frontiers  and  her  settled  territory  have 
been  pushed  farther  to  the  south  and  her 
means  of  communication  have  improved. 
On   the   other  hand,   the   fact   that   her 


72  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

people  have  been  of  the  same  faith  and 
of  the  same  race  as  the  majority  of  the 
Christians  of  European  Turkey  has  given 
to  her  conflicts  with  the  Ottoman  empire 
a  moral  justification  and  a  popular  na- 
tional character  of  the  utmost  value. 
They  have  been  crusades  and  wars  of 
liberation.  In  recent  years,  as  fanati- 
cism has  declined,  the  religious  sentiment 
has  been  replaced  by  an  almost  equally 
potent  nationalistic  one.  The  desire  to 
aid  brother  Slavs  rather  than  brother 
Orthodox  has  fired  the  Russian  popular 
mind,  but  the  efiects  have  been  much  the 
same,  and  have  strengthened,  and,  in- 
deed, more  than  once  forced,  the  hand 
of  the  government  of  St.  Petersburg. 

Conversely,  Russia,  as  the  one  inde- 
pendent and  mighty  Orthodox  power, 
was  long  looked  upon  by  most  of  the 
Christian  subjects  of  the  Sultan  as  their 
protector  and  future  liberator.  Their 
hopes  and  their  sympathies  have  turned 
naturally  to  her,  not  to  Catholic  Austria, 


THE    CHRISTIAN   SUBJECTS   OF    TURKEY    73 

the  zealous  daughter  of  the  hated  Roman 
church.  Russia  could  count  on  these 
Christians  for  such  assistance  as  they 
could  give  in  furnishing  her  with  informa- 
tion, aiding  her  agents,  and  smoothing  the 
way  for  her  armies.  Even  of  late,  when 
the  religious  motive  has  receded  into  the 
background,  the  Russians,  though  they 
have  lost  most  of  their  hold  on  the  Ru- 
manians and  Greeks,  have  been  in  a  much 
better  position  to  win  over  the  Monte- 
negrins, Serbians,  and  Bulgarians,  their 
fellow  Slavs,  than  have  the  Germans  and 
Magyars  of  Austria-Hungary.  It  has 
also,  for  the  same  reasons,  been  easier  for 
Russia  than  for  Austria  to  stir  up  troubles 
in  the  dominions  of  the  Sultan  or  to  find 
causes  for  interfering  in  behalf  of  his  op- 
pressed subjects.  The  role  of  defender 
of  the  oppressed  has,  indeed,  never  been 
a  peculiarly  Austrian  one. 

The  situation  and  policy  of  Austria 
have  been  widely  different.  Until  1870 
the  government  at  Vienna  was  usually 


74  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

more  concerned  with  the  affairs  of  Ger- 
many and  of  Italy  than  with  those  of  the 
Ottoman  empire.  It  has  been  consistent 
in  its  determination  that  Russia  should 
not  be  allowed  to  dispose  of  affairs  in  the 
East  without  consulting  the  interests  of 
Austria,  but  it  has  more  than  once 
changed  its  mind  as  to  whether  those  in- 
terests could  better  be  served  by  protect- 
ing the  Turks  against  Russian  aggression 
or  by  a  division  of  Turkish  spoils.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  Austria  usually  leaned 
to  the  latter  policy.  Since  then,  for  the 
last  one  hundred  and  twenty  years,  she 
has  been  for  the  most  part  the  friend  of 
the  Ottoman  empire,  though  not  a  senti- 
mental one,  and  quite  ready  to  profit  at 
its  expense  if  that  should  seem  the  wisest 
course.  She  has  had  the  strategical  ad- 
vantage of  being  near  to  the  scene  of 
action  and  of  occupying  a  position  which 
threatened  the  exposed  flank  and  long 
line  of  communication  of  the  Russian 
armies  when  they  had  advanced  far  to 
the  southward. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   SUBJECTS   OF    TURKEY    75 

With  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century  a  new  element  appears  in  the 
Eastern  Question.  The  Christian  subject 
nationalities,  which  for  generations  had 
submitted  passively  to  Turkish  rule,  be- 
gan to  reassert  their  rights  to  independent 
existence  and  to  strive  to  cast  off  the 
yoke  of  the  oppressor.  With  these  move- 
ments the  Russian  people  ardently  sym- 
pathized from  the  first,  and  the  govern- 
ment of  St.  Petersburg  also  supported 
them,  though  rather  intermittently.  Aus- 
tria, on  the  other  hand,  cared  nothing 
for  the  wrongs  or  for  the  aspirations  of 
Greeks  and  Serbs  and  Rumanians,  whom 
she  regarded  as  clients  of  Russia,  nor  did 
she  wish  to  see  them  achieve  indepen- 
dence at  the  expense  of  her  former  foe  but 
now  convenient  neighbor,  the  Ottoman 
empire.  She,  therefore,  bitterly  opposed 
the  intervention  of  the  powers  that  led  to 
the  liberation  of  Greece.  At  the  time  of 
the  Crimean  war,  she  not  only  ordered  the 
Russians  out  of  the  Rumanian  principali- 
ties, but  after  it  was  certain  they  were 


76  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

defeated,  practically  joined  the  alliance 
against  them  which  forced  them  to  the 
Peace  of  Paris,  and  by  a  treaty  with  Eng- 
land and  France  guaranteed  the  integrity 
of  the  Ottoman  empire. 

That  empire,  thus  set  up  again  by  the 
powers,  enjoyed  a  few  years  of  progress 
and  reform,  but  soon  the  process  of  de- 
composition set  in  more  rapidly  than 
ever.  Corruption  and  misgovernment 
were  everywhere  rampant,  and  the  money 
wrung  from  an  overtaxed  people  was 
squandered  in  wanton  fashion,  until  in 
1875  the  national  debt  was  scaled  down 
by  partial  repudiation.  Security  of  life 
and  property,  or  justice  before  the  courts, 
hardly  existed  for  the  Christian  subjects 
of  the  Sultan.  It  is  no  wonder  that  they 
looked  across  the  borders  with  envy  to 
their  more  fortunate  brethren  in  the  little 
Balkan  states  which  had  succeeded  in 
emancipating  themselves,  wholly  or  in 
part,  from  Turkish  rule.  It  was  also  in 
the  nature  of  things  that  they  found  sym- 


PANSLAVISM  77 


pathy  not  only  among  their  free  Balkan 
kinsmen  but  also  farther  away,  a  sym- 
pathy heightened  by  a  nationalistic  move- 
ment that  had  been  going  on  in  the  Rus- 
sian empire  itself. 

The  intense  consciousness  of  national- 
ity which  has  been  so  potent  a  factor  in 
THe  history  of  the  world  since  about  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century,  even  if 
at  bottom  much  the  same  everywhere,  has 
taken  on  many  shapes  in  different  coun- 
tries. In  Russia  one  of  its  manifestations 
has  been  a  keen  new  interest  in  the  fate 
of  the  other  Slav  peoples  and  a  desire  for 
union  with  them.  As  a  purely  senti- 
mental idea,  based  on  real  or  fancied 
community  of  race,  language,  and  cul- 
ture, but  without  political  objects,  this 
movement  has  been  called  Slavophilism. 
Akin  to  this,  but  going  a  step  further,  and 
with  the  avowed  aim  of  bringing  the 
various  Slav  peoples  into  some  sort  of 
common  political  system,  has  been  the 
better   known    movement    termed    Pan- 


78  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

slavism.  Not  unnaturally  this  last  doc- 
trine was  regarded  by  foreign  countries 
with  Slavic  subjects  as  a  menace  to  their 
integrity,  especially  as  it  found  partisans 
among  all  the  Slav  peoples.  In  1867  their 
ideals  were  set  forth  with  much  fervor  in 
a  Panslavic  Congress  held  in  Moscow. 
Panslavism  had  by  this  time  obtained  no 
small  hold  on  Russian  public  opinion, 
and  could  count  its  orators  and  its  poets 
and  its  many  local  societies  whose  object 
was  not  only  to  preach  the  cause  but  to 
give  assistance  to  brother  Slavs  suffering 
under  foreign  oppression. 

The  imperial  government  at  first  looked 
on  the  movement  with  little  favor.  Ever 
since  the  days  of  Peter  the  Great  the 
Russian  court  and  administration  had 
cared  more  for  being  regarded  as  full- 
fledged  exponents  of  general  European 
civilization  than  they  had  for  any  pecu- 
liar virtues  of  the  Slavic  race.  It  was 
difficult,  too,  to  harmonize  Panslavic 
ideals  with  the  severity  which  had  been 


PANSLA  VISM  AND  THE  BALKAN  PENINSULA     79 

meted  out  to  the  Poles  since  the  insurrec- 
tion of  1863.  Nevertheless,  the  Panslav- 
ists  had  their  friends  at  court  and  in  the 
official  world  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  were 
supported  by  a  widespread  national  feel- 
ing. 

The  Balkan  Peninsula  presented  an 
obvious  field  for  the  activity  of  those 
zealous  for  the  cause  of  Slavic  welfare. 
Serbia  and  Montenegro  had,  indeed,  won 
their  liberties,  but  there  were  still  several 
million  Slavs  groaning  under  the  evils  of 
Turkish  misrule.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
they  found  ardent  sympathy  in  Russia, 
and  that  Panslavist  organizations  there 
not  only  sent  them  money  for  schools  and 
for  many  other  needs,  but  also  encouraged 
their  hopes  of  independence  and  aided 
them  to  plot  and  prepare  for  it.  The  au- 
thorities in  St.  Petersburg  seem  to  have 
kept  aloof  from  these  activities,  though 
they  must  have  had  some  cognizance  of 
them;  but  the  able  and  not  too  scru- 
pulous   ambassador    in    Constantinople, 


8o  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

Count  Ignatiev,  an  ardent  Panslavist, 
gave  ground  for  English  and  Austrian 
accusations  that  the  Russian  embassy 
was  a  centre  of  conspiracy  against  the 
integrity  of  the  Ottoman  empire.  In 
spite  of  this,  Ignatiev  had  more  influence 
with  the  Sultan  than  had  any  of  his  col- 
leagues. 

The  special  object  of  Russian  interest 
was  the  Bulgarians.  They  had  reawak- 
ened to  national  consciousness  later  than 
had  the  Greeks  and  the  Serbs,  but  now 
they  were  awake.  Since  the  middle  of 
the  century  there  had  been  an  active  Bul- 
garian movement,  not  outwardly  dis- 
loyal, yet,  in  the  nature  of  things,  con- 
cealing under  its  efforts  for  education  and 
progress  hopes  for  political  emancipation. 
It  had  already  achieved  one  notable  suc- 
cess in  1870,  when,  thanks  in  part  to  Rus- 
sian influence,  the  Sultan  had  been  per- 
suaded to  consent  to  the  establishment  of 
a  Bulgarian  ecclesiastical  exarchate,  in- 
dependent of  the  Greek  patriarch  of  Con- 


BULGARIA,   BOSNIA,  AND  HERZEGOVINA      8i 

stantinople.  The  action  of  Russia  on 
this  occasion  showed  that  times  had 
changed,  that  the  Greeks  were  no  longer 
her  favorites  as  in  the  days  of  Catherine 
II,  but  that  in  her  sentiments  toward  the 
Christian  populations  of  the  East  the 
nationalistic  impulse  had  now  taken  the 
place  of  the  old  religious  one. 

Bad  as  conditions  were  in  Bulgaria, 
they  were  still  worse  in  the  territories  of 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina.  Here  the  un- 
fortunate Christian  peasantry  had  to  suf- 
fer not  only  from  the  usual  exactions  of 
the  Turkish  official  and  tax-gatherer,  but 
also  from  the  oppression  of  the  upper 
classes,  a  landowning  aristocracy  who, 
though  of  Serbian  origin,  were  Moham- 
medan in  faith,  and  treated  their  serfs 
with  brutal  harshness.  The  mountain- 
ous nature  of  the  region,  which  made  in- 
surrection easy  and  its  repression  difficult, 
the  patent  weakness  of  the  Turkish  gov- 
ernment, and  the  spectacle  of  the  success 
of  their  brethren  in  Serbia  in  achieving  in- 


82  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

dependence  contributed  to  make  a  rising 
of  the  hard-pressed  Christians  in  Bosnia 
and  Herzegovina  an  event  that  might 
occur  at  any  time. 

But  here  the  interests  of  Austria  would 
at  once  be  vitally  affected.  Already,  in 
the  wars  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Aus- 
trian armies  had  entered  these  regions. 
Since  1815  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  had 
been  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  Aus- 
tro-Hungarian  territory,  and  they  formed 
the  obvious  hinterland  for  the  maritime 
province  of  Dalmatia,  which  without 
them  had  unsatisfactory  connection  with 
the  rest  of  the  empire.  The  possibility  of 
their  acquisition  must  have  been  often  in 
the  minds  of  the  statesmen  in  Vienna, 
especially  since  the  loss  of  Venice  had 
weakened  the  position  of  Austria  in  the 
Adriatic  and  given  her  a  dangerous  rival 
there  in  the  new  kingdom  of  Italy.  The 
military  authorities  frankly  advocated  the 
annexation  of  the  territory  at  the  earliest 
favorable  opportunity,  and  there  is  reason 


INSURRECTION  IN  HERZEGO  VINA  A  ND  BOSNIA     S^ 

for  thinking  that  the  emperor  himself  was 
anxious  to  obtain  compensation  in  this 
way  for  the  loss  of  Lombardy  and  Vene- 
tia,  and  not  to  go  down  to  history  as  one 
of  the  few  Hapsburgs  under  whose  rule 
the  dominions  of  the  house  had  grown 
smaller,  not  larger.  In  1875  he  paid  a 
visit  to  Dalmatia  with  an  ostentation  and 
in  a  manner  that  seemed  to  show  interest 
in  the  land  beyond  the  borders  of  the 
province. 

When,  therefore,  in  the  course  of  that 
autumn  news  began  to  reach  Europe  of 
an  insurrection  in  Herzegovina  which  soon 
spread  to  Bosnia,  and  which  the  Turks 
appeared  unable  to  suppress,  there  was 
little  to  surprise  but  much  to  alarm  those 
who  cared  for  the  preservation  of  Euro- 
pean peace.  However  cordial  the  inter- 
course might  be  between  Austria  and 
Russia,  however  specific  the  political 
agreements,  however  friendly  the  sover- 
eigns, experience  had  shown  again  and 
again   that   the   raising  of  the   Eastern 


84  TEE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

Question  was  fraught  with  danger  to  good 
relations  between  the  two  empires.  Twice 
before  in  the  nineteenth  century  it  had 
brought  them  into  sharp  opposition  to 
one  another,  and  now  at  St.  Petersburg 
and  at  Vienna  every  one  knew  that  the 
League  of  the  Three  Emperors  was  too 
feeble  a  bond  to  maintain  Austro-Rus- 
sian  harmony  if  there  should  be  a  serious 
clash  of  interests. 

At  first  there  was  little  difficulty  in 
maintaining  the  concert  of  the  powers. 
All  of  them  were  sincerely  anxious  that 
the  conflagration  that  had  broken  out  in 
the  Balkans  should  not  spread  farther. 
The  nearest  available  consular  officers 
were  sent  to  hunt  out  the  insurgents  and 
persuade  them  to  lay  down  their  arms 
and  trust  to  the  promises  of  the  Sultan. 
This  they  refused  to  do;  they  had  lost 
faith  in  such  promises.  As  there  was  no 
doubt  that  their  grievances  were  real, 
and  as  the  sins  of  the  Turkish  administra- 
tion were  notorious,  the  three  imperial 


THE  ANDRASSY  note  85 

governments  entered  into  communication 
with  one  another  and  agreed  upon  a  note 
which  took  its  name  from  Count  An- 
drassy,  and  which  demanded  from  the 
Porte,  besides  an  armistice,  a  series  of 
reforms,  including  the  equality  of  Chris- 
tians and  Mohammedans,  the  abolition  of 
the  farming  of  taxes,  an  improvement  of 
agrarian  conditions,  and  the  appointment 
of  a  mixed  Christian  and  Mohammedan 
commission  to  look  after  the  carrying  out 
of  these  measures.  England  and  France 
adhered  to  this  note,  and  on  January  31, 
1876,  it  was  presented  in  Constantinople, 
where  after  some  parley  it  was  accepted 
in  principle  by  the  Turks.  But  the  in- 
surgents were  not  satisfied.  They  made 
counter-propositions,  demanding  not  only 
greater  concessions  but  guarantees;  that 
is  to  say,  that  the  powers  should  see  to  it 
that  the  Turkish  promises  were  carried 
out.  The  Turks  in  their  turn  promptly 
refused,  and  fierce  desultory  fighting  con- 
tinued, while  thousands  of  refugees  fled 


86  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

into  Dalmatia  and  Montenegro  and  agi- 
tation increased  among  all  the  Balkan 
Slavs.  Aroused  by  this  state  of  affairs, 
the  three  imperial  governments  deter- 
mined to  make  another  effort.  It  was 
agreed  that  their  foreign  ministers  should 
meet  in  Berlin  and  come  to  a  further  de- 
cision on  Eastern  affairs.  This  time 
Prince  Gorchakov  took  the  lead.  He  was 
emphatic  in  his  disbelief  in  Turkish  prom- 
ises and  favored  some  vigorous  step,  but 
met  with  unwillingness  on  the  part  of 
Andrassy.  A  new  note,  however,  was 
drawn  up,  known  as  the  Berlin  Memo- 
randum. The  suggestions  of  the  An- 
drassy note  were  reiterated,  and  it  was 
declared  that  the  carrying  out  of  the 
necessary  reforms  must  be  under  the 
safeguard  of  an  international  commis- 
sion. Finally,  in  case  the  Turks  should 
remain  obstinate,  there  was  a  distinct 
hint  at  coercion. 

Up  to  this  point  there  had  been  at  least 
apparent    agreement    among    the    great 


THE  BERLIN  MEMORANDUM  87 

powers.  But  the  League  of  the  Three 
Emperors  had  made  a  mistake  in  assum- 
ing that  all  the  other  European  states 
would  accede  without  discussion  to  what- 
ever decisions  were  submitted  to  them. 
France  and  Italy  might  not  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  follow  an  independent  course,  but 
Great  Britain  had  just  then  as  its  prime 
minister  a  man  who  held  lofty  ideas  about 
his  country  and  had  definite  views  as  to 
the  course  he  meant  to  pursue. 

Benjamin  Disraeli,  soon  to  be  made 
Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  may  be  termed  the  ^^q  /' 
first  of  modern  English  Imperialists.  To  ^y  ^ 
him  the  British  empire  was  no  mere  ab- 
straction; it  was  a  great  world  power  with 
interests  everywhere  and  a  right  to  be 
consulted  and  listened  to  everywhere. 
This  right  he  meant  to  assert.  The  coro- 
nation in  1876  of  Queen  Victoria  as  em- 
press of  India  was  not  the  bit  of  empty 
theatrical  display  it  appeared  to  many. 
It  was  an  assertion  of  the  imperial  posi- 
tion of  the  sovereign  of  Great   Britain, 


88  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

and  as  such  a  declaration  of  policy.  Dis- 
raeli hardly  entertained  many  illusions 
about  the  Turks;  but  the  Orient  had  long 
appealed  to  his  imagination,  and  he  be- 
lieved that  England  could  and  should 
play  a  great  part  there.  He  had  already 
achieved  one  brilliant  diplomatic  success. 
By  his  sudden  secret  purchase  of  the  Khe- 
dive's shares  in  the  Suez  Canal  he  had 
strengthened  the  position  of  Britain  in 
the  East  at  the  expense  of  France,  who 
saw  her  control  of  the  great  waterway, 
built  by  a  Frenchman  with  French  money, 
slipping  away  from  her,  yet  could  only 
look  on  with  impotent  chagrin.  Toward 
Prince  Bismarck  he  seems  to  have  felt  at 
this  time  a  certain  personal  dislike,  and, 
it  may  be,  jealousy,  but  the  real  foe,  in 
his  eyes,  the  power  that  he  ever  watched 
and  distrusted,  was  Russia.  His  feelings 
in  this  respect  may,  as  has  often  been 
asserted,  have  been  influenced  by  his 
Jewish  origin,  but  they  were  in  accor- 
dance with  English  traditions  of  the  pre- 


GREAT  BRITAIN  DISSENTS  89 

vious  twenty  years,  and  they  were  natural 
in  the  breast  of  a  statesman  who  had 
visions  of  a  splendid  future  for  his  own 
country.  At  this  very  time  the  violently 
anti-Russian  ambassador  of  Britain  at 
Constantinople  was  sending  home  alarm- 
ing reports  of  Muscovite  intrigue. 

When  the  League  of  the  Three  Emper- 
ors had  agreed  upon  the  Andrassy  note, 
London  had  acceded,  though  without  en- 
thusiasm. Now  when  there  came  a  sec- 
ond document  on  Eastern  affairs,  con- 
cocted without  the  participation  of  Great 
Britain,  and  merely  submitted  by  tele- 
gram with  a  request  for  a  prompt  adhe- 
sion, British  dignity  and  the  spirit  that 
guided  British  policy  asserted  themselves. 
The  reply  sent  was  not  prompt,  and  when 
it  did  come  it  was  a  flat  refusal.  "Her 
Majesty's  government  appreciate  the  ad- 
vantage of  concerted  action  by  the  pow- 
ers in  all  that  relates  to  the  questions 
arising  out  of  the  insurrection,  but  they 
cannot  consent  to  join  in  proposals  which 


go  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

they  do  not  conscientiously  believe  likely 
to  effect  the  pacification  which  all  the 
powers  desire  to  see  attained."  * 

This  put  an  end  to  the  unanimity  of 
the  powers,  and  also  to  any  impression 
that  the  Memorandum  might  make  on 
the  Turks,  who  now  felt  that  they  had, 
as  in  1854,  friends  on  whom  they  could 
rely  for  support,  even  without  following 
their  advice.  Meanwhile  the  situation  in 
the  East  had  become  grave,  for  the  ex- 
citement among  the  Christians  of  the 
Ottoman  empire  had  stimulated  counter- 
excitement  among  the  Mohammedans. 
On  May  6,  1876,  a  mob  in  Salonica  mur- 
dered the  French  and  German  consuls 
there.  On  May  29  the  stupid  and  profli- 
gate Sultan  Abdul-Aziz  was  overthrown 
by  a  revolution.  Six  days  later  he  was 
assassinated  or  committed  suicide.  He 
was  succeeded  by  his  brother,  Murad  V, 
who  after  a  few  months  was  deposed  in 
his  turn  on  account  of  insanity  and  re- 

*  Parliamentary  Papers,  1876,  Ixxsiv,  Turkey,  no.  3,  p.  171. 


SERBIA  AND  MONTENEGRO  DECLARE  WAR  91 

placed  by  Abdul-Hamid  II,  then  a  very 
young  man.  In  May  there  were  risings 
in  Bulgaria,  and  in  time  rumors  from 
there  reached  Europe  of  sporadic  insur- 
rections followed  by  fierce  repression. 
On  July  I  and  2  Serbia  and  Montenegro, 
carried  away  by  their  sympathies  for 
their  insurgent  kinsmen  in  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina  and  by  the  hope  of  adding 
these  territories  to  their  own,  declared 
war  on  Turkey. 

As  was  inevitable,  the  news  of  what  was 
happening  in  the  Balkans  at  once  affected   /<5  7^  * 
Russia.     The  nation  espoused  with  en-     B<jx  / 
thusiasm  the  cause  of  the  brother  Slavs.  ^' 

Gifts  of  all  kinds,  and  volunteers,  includ- 
ing army  officers,  came  pouring  into  Ser- 
bia. Public  opinion  began  to  clamor  for 
war,  or  at  least  intervention,  and  the 
government  itself  could  not,  if  it  would, 
remain  indifferent  to  the  pressure  that 
was  being  put  on  it. 

It  was  not,  indeed,  to  be  expected  that 
Alexander  II  and  his  ministers  could  sit 


92  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

with  folded  hands  as  mere  spectators  of 
whatever  events  might  occur  in  the  Bal- 
kan Peninsula.  Sooner  or  later  they  must 
take  some  decisive  action.  Every  Rus- 
sian tradition  in  the  Eastern  Question 
made  this  imperative.  But  besides  the 
probable  hostility  of  England,  they  had, 
as  so  often  before,  to  reckon  with  the 
attitude  of  Austria,  especially  since  the 
immediate  cause  of  the  crisis  had  been 
the  troubles  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina, 
the  part  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  in  which 
she  was  most  interested.  It  was  well 
known  at  St.  Petersburg  that  Austria, 
having  abandoned  the  hope  of  playing  a 
role  in  German  and  Italian  affairs,  was 
now  looking  more  toward  the  ^Egean,  and 
was  not  inclined  to  remain  a  merely  pas- 
sive spectator.  Also,  it  was  at  least  sus- 
pected that  she  could  rely  on  the  good 
will  and  perhaps  the  actual  support  of 
Germany.  As  early  as  1867,  the  Austrian 
minister  at  St.  Petersburg  had  suggested 
that  if  Russia  were  to  regain  Bessarabia, 


RUSSIA   AND  AUSTRIA  93 

Austria  ought  to  have  Bosnia  and  Herze- 
govina. Gorchakov  had  combated  the 
idea,  but  not  very  strenuously.*  We  do 
not  know  whether  It  was  considered  again 
at  BerUn  in  1872.  In  the  conversations 
that  took  place  there,  Gorchakov  and 
Andrassy  agreed  not  to  meddle  in  the  in- 
ternal affairs  of  the  Ottoman  empire,  but 
not  to  aid  it  In  suppressing  insurrections 
in  its  dominions,  even  if  appealed  to. 
The  first  stipulation  might  be  regarded  as 
a  concession  on  the  part  of  Russia,  the 
second  on  that  of  Austria,  so  long  the 
supporter  of  the  status  quo.  In  the  fol- 
lowing year,  when  Alexander  II  visited 
Francis  Joseph  In  Vienna,  the  question  of 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  seems  to  have 
been  taken  up  again  and  an  understand- 
ing was  reached  but  not  put  down  in  writ- 
ing. A  treaty  of  alliance,  however,  of  a 
general  nature  was  concluded  at  the  pal- 


*  Count  Friedrich  Revertera.  The  incident  is  narrated  by 
him  in  an  article  in  the  Deutsche  Revue  for  May,  1904 
(pp.  139-140). 


94  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

ace  of  Schonbrunn  and  signed  by  both 
sovereigns,  who  pledged  themselves  to  full 
confidence  in  one  another  and  to  common 
action  for  the  maintenance  of  European 
peace.*  The  time  had  now  come  when 
it  was  urgent  to  pass  from  these  vague 
generalities  to  something  more  definite, 


*  Revertera  declares  that  there  was  a  signed  agreement  that 
in  case  of  a  Russian-Turkish  war  Austria  was  to  remain  neu- 
tral, and  in  case  of  a  Russian  victory  was  to  obtain  Bosnia 
and  Herzegovina.  Russia  was  to  have  a  free  hand  in  settling 
the  affairs  of  the  other  Balkan  territories,  but  must  not  retain 
possession  of  Constantinople  and  must  notify  Austria  in  ad- 
vance of  the  terms  of  peace.  This  statement  cannot  be  recon- 
ciled with  the  account  given  by  Wertheimer  (iii,  89),  who  had 
consulted  the  copy  of  the  compact  in  Andrassy's  own  hand- 
writing. Revertera  declares  that  he  got  his  information  from 
one  of  the  Russian  diplomats  present  at  the  discussion;  but, 
writing  about  the  event  many  years  afterward,  he  may  well 
have  confused  previous  discussions  and  oral  agreements  with 
what  was  actually  put  into  written  form.  According  to  Wert- 
heimer (ii,  118),  quoting  from  the  unpublished  correspon- 
dence of  the  German  ambassador,  Prince  Reuss,  when  An- 
drassy  visited  St.  Petersburg  in  1874,  Gorchakov  declared  to 
him  emphatically  that  an  Austrian  occupation  of  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina  would  mean  a  casus  belli.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  promptitude  with  which  the  understanding  was  reached 
at  Reichstadt  would  suggest  that  the  terms  had  been  discussed 
earlier.  It  is  curious  that  neither  Goriainov  nor  Wertheimer 
nor  any  other  writer,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  alluded  to  Re- 
vertera's  article. 


REICHSTADT  95 


especially  as  divergencies  of  policy  were 
beginning  to  manifest  themselves. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  that 
the  emperors  of  Russia  and  Austria,  ac- 
companied by  their  foreign  ministers,  once 
more  met,  on  July  8,  1876,  at  the  Bohe- 
mian castle  ,of  Reichstadt.  The  inter- 
view lasted  but  a  few  hours  and  the  scant 
accounts  of  it  that  have  been  published 
contain  several  discrepancies.  Still,  the 
main  outlines  of  what  was  stipulated  are 
clear.  No  official  document  was  signed, 
but  an  understanding  was  reached  and 
noted  down,  though  some  of  its  details 
may  not  have  been  put  in  writing  or 
even  formally  expressed.  Two  hypoth- 
eses were  discussed:  the  victory  of  the 
Turks  and  the  victory  of  the  Serbians  and 
Montenegrins.  In  the  first  event,  Russia 
and  Austria  were  to  preserve  the  two  little 
Christian  states  from  suffering  permanent 
loss.  This  looked  simple,  but  the  second 
contingency — and  it  seems  to  have  been 
regarded  as  the  more  probable  of  the  two 


96  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

— was  much  harder  to  provide  for.  A 
defeat  of  the  Turks  might  well  mean  the 
end  of  the  Ottoman  empire  in  Europe. 
In  that  case,  what  should  be  the  policy  of 
Russia  and  Austria .? 

The  arrangement  on  this  subject  con- 
cluded at  Reichstadt  showed  astonishing 
moderation  or  disinterestedness  or  weak- 
ness— call  it  which  we  will — on  the  part 
of  Russia.  It  provided  for  a  number  of 
slight  additions  of  territory  to  Monte- 
negro, Serbia,  and  Greece,  and  also  for  an 
independent  Bulgaria  and  Albania  (Con- 
stantinople was  to  be  a  free  city),  but 
there  was  to  be  no  large  Balkan  Slav 
state,  whether  Serbian  or  Bulgarian,  that 
could  be  either  a  dangerous  satellite  of 
Russia  or  a  real  obstacle  to  Austrian  prog- 
ress farther  to  the  southward  at  some 
future  date.  Austria  was  to  have  imme- 
diate possession  of  Bosnia  and  Herze- 
govina. All  that  Russia  stipulated  for 
herself  was  the  fragment  of  Bessarabia 
that  had  been  taken  away  from  her  at 


REICHSTADT  97 


the  Peace  of  Paris  in  1856,*  and  this, 
though  it  gave  her  a  foothold  on  the  lower 
Danube,  was  a  matter  of  pride  rather  than 
of  real  importance,  and,  secondly  (but 
perhaps  not  in  writing),  a  rectification  of 
her  frontier  in  Asia,  a  matter  in  which 
Austria  felt  no  interest.  No  wonder  that 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  and  Count  An- 
drassy  are  said  to  have  left  Reichstadt 
well  satisfied.! 

Events  in  the  Balkans  now  ran  their 
course,  but  not  in  the  way  that  had  been 
expected.  The  Ottoman  state  which  had 
shown  itself  incompetent  to  put  down 
the  insurrection  in  Bosnia  suddenly  ral- 
lied in  the  face  of  new  perils.  The  feeble 
risings  in  Bulgaria  had  been  quenched  in 
the  blood  of  some  twelve  thousand  of  the 
inhabitants,  men,  women,  and  children. 
It  is  true  that  the  Montenegrins  held 
their  own,  but  the  Serbians,  whose  terri- 


*  But  not  the  islands  of  the  delta,  which  she  had  held  from 
1812  to  1856. 

t  A.  Fournier,  Wie  zoir  zu  Bosnien  kamen,  p.  23. 


98  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

tory  was  soon  invaded,  were  defeated  in 
one  encounter  after  another,  in  spite  of 
the  streams  of  Russian  volunteers  that 
came  to  their  aid.  On  August  29,  Prince 
Milan  appealed  to  the  powers  for  media- 
tion. At  the  news  of  these  disasters  the 
excitement  in  Russia  increased,  and  the 
clamor  for  armed  intervention  in  behalf 
of  the  Balkan  Slavs  became  ever  louder. 
The  government  could  not  but  take  heed 
of  this,  and,  while  refusing  to  allow  itself 
to  be  hurried  into  precipitate  action,  it 
urged  the  calling  of  a  general  European 
conference,  and  even  suggested  to  Eng- 
land that  she  take  the  initiative. 

The  game  of  political  and  diplomatic 
intrigue  was  at  this  moment  particularly- 
intricate.  The  League  of  the  Three  Em- 
perors still  existed,  and  the  relations  be- 
tween the  members  were  in  theory  close 
and  cordial,  but  not  one  of  the  partners 
had  complete  trust  in  the  others.  Cir- 
cumstances beyond  their  control  seemed 
to  be  pushing  them  toward  an  estrange- 


THE  GAME  OF  INTRIGUE  99 


merit,  if  not  worse.  Bismarck,  Gorcha- 
kov,  and  Andrassy  were  all  diplomats  of 
more  than  ordinary  skill,  and  each  was 
now  trying  to  feel  his  way  with  the  others. 
Bismarck,  the  ablest  of  the  three,  was 
also  in  much  the  strongest  position,  for, 
besides  representing  the  most  powerful 
empire,  he  had  the  fewest  difficulties  at 
home  to  contend  with,  and  he  had  no 
immediate  ambitions  to  serve  or  vital 
interests  at  stake. 

In  August  General  Manteuffel  was 
sent  with  a  letter  from  Emperor  William 
assuring  the  Tsar  of  his  undiminished 
friendship  and  of  his  readiness  to  sup- 
port him.*  Manteuffel  also  seems,  fol- 
lowing in  the  steps  of  the  Radowitz  mis- 
sion of  the  previous  year,  to  have  sug- 
gested a  new  treaty  of  alliance  between 
Germany  and  Russia,  presumably  on  the 
same  sort  of  terms,  namely,  freedom  of  ac- 
tion against  France  in  return  for  support 

*The  language  was  perhaps  stronger  than  Bismarck  ap- 
proved. 


lOO  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

in  the  Eastern  Question.  Again  Emperor 
Alexander  refused  to  entertain  the  sug- 
gestion. Instead  he  asked  that  Ger- 
many should  keep  Austria  in  check. 
Matters  were  not  going  well  between  St. 
Petersburg  and  Vienna.  Owing  to  the 
Ottoman  victories  the  Reichstadt  agree- 
ment soon  ceased  to  fit  the  situation. 
Austria  no  longer  showed  any  zeal  for  the 
betterment  of  the  Turk;  she  at  first  re- 
fused the  conference  of  the  powers  when 
suggested  by  England;  and  though  she 
later  consented  to  it,  she  made  it  clear 
that  she  would  not  consent  to  the  political 
autonomy  of  Bosnia,  or  to  its  annexation 
to  Serbia.  Such  an  attitude  could  not 
but  provoke  irritation. 

It  happened  that  Alexander  II  was  at 
that  time  at  Livadia  in  the  Crimea,  as 
were  a  number  of  the  chief  Russian  gen- 
erals, who  were  naturally  occupied  with 
the  political  situation  and  with  plans  for 
a  possible  campaign  in  the  near  future. 
Suddenly  General  von  Werder,  the  Ger- 


BISMARCK'S  REPLY  loi 

man  military  representative  specially  at- 
tached to  the  Tsar,  was  asked  to  inquire 
by  telegraph  whether  Germany  would 
remain  neutral  in  case  of  war  between 
Russia  and  Austria.  The  question  was 
most  unwelcome  to  Bismarck,  who  tried 
to  evade  a  direct  reply;  but  when  it 
was  repeated  with  urgency,  he  at  last 
answered  that  Germany  could  indeed  put 
up  with  it  that  her  friends  should  win 
or  lose  battles  against  each  other,  *'but 
not  that  one  of  the  two  should  be  so 
severely  wounded  and  injured  that  her 
position  as  an  independent  great  power 
taking  its  place  in  the  councils  of  Europe 
would  be  endangered."*  This  was  plain 
enough.  As  no  one  in  Russia  had  any 
fear  that  she  might  need  German  support 
to  maintain  her  position  as  an  independ- 
ent great  power  against  Austria,  the  real 
meaning  of  Bismarck's  reply  was  that 
Russia,  despite  the  fact  that  she  had  been 

*  See  Bismarck's  account  of  the  matter.     Gedanken  und 
Erinnerungen,  ii,  p.  214. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  "UFCRNIA 
SANTA  BAF.SAKA  COU-E 


I02  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

prepared  to  fight  Austria  if  necessary  in 
behalf  of  Germany  six  years  earHer,  now 
could  not  count  on  German  neutrality  in 
a  Russo- Austrian  war.  A  couple  of  weeks 
later  Bismarck  once  more  sounded  Gor- 
chakov  as  to  whether,  in  return  for  the 
assistance  of  Germany  in  the  East,  Rus- 
sia would  guarantee  to  her  the  possession 
of  Alsace-Lorraine.  Again  the  proposal 
was  declined.* 

Baffled  in  its  hope  of  obtaining  a  prom- 
ise of  German  neutrality  in  case  of  a 
breach  with  Austria,  the  government  of 
the  Tsar,  which  was  being  reluctantly 
driven  toward  a  Turkish  war  by  popular 
feeling  at  home,"turned  again  to  its  pro- 
fessed ally  and  friend  in  Vienna.  Al- 
ready, before  von  Werder  had  left  Liva- 
dia,  and  before  Bismarck's  reply  had  been 
received,  a  special  envoy  had  been  sent 
to  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  bearing  a  let- 
ter from  the  Tsar,  in  which  Alexander  pro- 
posed that  in  order  to  put  pressure  on  the 

*  Wertheimer,  iii,  p.  249. 


RUSSIA   AND  AUSTRIA  103 

Turks  the  Austrians  should  occupy  Bos- 
nia and  Herzegovina,  the  Russians  Bul- 
garia, and  that  an  allied  fleet  should  be 
sent  to  the  Dardanelles. 

In  Vienna  these  overtures  met  with  a 
cool  reception.  Neither  Count  Andrassy 
nor  his  master  had  the  slightest  desire  to 
go  to  war  with  Turkey.  Partnership  with 
Russia  was  looked  at  askance  by  many 
elements  in  the  Dual  Empire,  and  par- 
ticularly by  the  Hungarians,  who  had 
Turkish  sympathies  and  who  had  not 
forgotten  that  their  revolution  in  1849 
had  been  put  down  by  Russian  armies. 
Even  the  idea  of  annexing  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina  was  none  too  popular,  ex- 
cept in  military  circles.  The  Germans 
and  the  Hungarians,  the  dominant  na- 
tionalities in  the  two  parliaments,  feared 
the  results  of  so  large  an  addition  to  the 
Slav  elements  in  the  population.  An- 
drassy, therefore,  found  himself  in  a  deli- 
cate situation.  He  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  eager  for  the  annexation,  and 


I04  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

he  was  anxious,  if  it  should  come,  to  have 
it  come  peacefully,  but  he  was  deter- 
mined not  to  let  the  territory  go  to  any 
other  power  or  to  permit  any  new  obsta- 
cles to  be  placed  in  the  path  if  annexation 
should  prove  to  be  desirable.  Accord- 
ingly, Emperor  Francis  Joseph,  while  re- 
serving the  rights  and  interests  of  Aus- 
tria whatever  might  be  the  outcome  of 
the  existing  situation,  refused  to  take  any 
joint  steps  with  Russia  toward  actual 
coercion  of  the  Turks.  A  fresh  inter- 
change of  imperial  letters  produced  no 
further  agreement.  In  other  words,  Aus- 
tria, though  admitting  that  conditions 
in  the  Balkan  Peninsula  were  intolerable, 
was  none  the  less  determined  to  leave  the 
risk  and  burden  of  intervention  to  her 
ally,  and  yet  to  take  her  full  pound  of 
flesh.  Who  could  feel  sure  that  even  the 
friendly  neutrality  which  was  all  that  she 
offered  was  to  be  relied  upon,  and  that 
when  once  the  armies  of  her  ally  had 
made  their  way  well  to  the  southward, 


THE  BULGARIAN  ATROCITIES  105 

and  she  could  threaten  their  long  ex- 
posed line  of  communications  from  her 
dominant  position  on  their  flank,  she 
would  not  come  forward  with  new  de- 
mands ? 

Meanwhile,  in  England  the  reports  of 
the  Bulgarian  atrocities,  elaborated  in  a 
famous  pamphlet  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  had 
excited  such  public  indignation  as  to 
dampen  for  a  time  the  pro-Turkish  zeal 
of  Lord  Beaconsfield's  administration.  In 
Russia  the  war  party  was  temporarily 
mollified  by  an  ultimatum  on  October  31, 
summoning  the  Porte  to  grant  within 
forty-eight  hours  a  two  months*  armistice 
to  Serbia.  Even  before  receiving  it  the 
Turks,  yielding  to  English  advice  and  still 
more  to  the  necessities  of  the  situation, 
had  decided  to  make  the  concession. 
None  the  less,  Russia  was  steadily  pre- 
paring for  war,  and  on  November  2  the 
Tsar,  in  an  audience  given  to  Lord  Loftus, 
the  British  ambassador,  while  earnestly 
disclaiming   all   desire   of  territorial   ag- 


io6  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

grandizement  and  especially  of  the  ac- 
quisition of  Constantinople,  declared: 
"He  wished  to  maintain  the  European 
concert,  but  if  Europe  remained  passive, 
he  would  be  obliged  to  act  alone."*  On 
the  following  day  he  sent  a  third  personal 
letter  to  Emperor  Francis  Joseph,  and 
fresh  instructions  to  his  own  ambassador 
at  Vienna  to  negotiate  for  the  friendly 
neutrality  of  Austria  even  though  she 
had  refused  her  cooperation. 

But  now  Lord  Beaconsfield  sounded  a 
blast.  At  a  Guildhall  banquet  on  No- 
vember 9  he  proclaimed  that  "though 
the  policy  of  England  is  peace,  there  is  no 
country  so  well  prepared  for  war  as  our 
own,"  and  he  continued  in  a  strain  which 
was  generally  interpreted  as  a  menace  to 
Russia.  Next  day  the  Tsar  replied  f  in 
an  address  to  the  nobility  at  Moscow,  in 
which  he  declared  that  in  spite  of  herself 

*  Parliamentary  Papers,  1877,  xc,  p.  576. 
t  It  is  not  certain  whether  he  had  already  received  news  of 
the  Guildhall  speech. 


PROPOSAL  FOR  A   CONFERENCE  107 

Russia  might  have  to  draw  the  sword; 
and  on  the  morrow  he  emphasized  his  re- 
marks by  an  order  for  the  mobihzation 
of  six  army  corps. 

The  Enghsh  government,  however,  had 
already  issued  an  invitation  to  the  powers 
for  a  conference  at  Constantinople.*  The 
programme  was  based  on  the  recognition 
of  the  integrity  of  the  Ottoman  empire 
and  a  disclaimer  of  all  individual  advan- 
tages on  the  part  of  the  powers,  but  the 
object  of  the  meeting  was  the  elaboration 
of  a  satisfactory  plan  of  reform  and  au- 
tonomy for  the  Balkan  Christians.  Lord 
Derby  suggested  peace  and  the  status  quo 
for  Serbia  and  Montenegro,  autonomy 
for  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  and  guar- 
antees for  an  improved  administration  of 
Bulgaria.  Russia  was  in  sympathy  with 
these  proposals.  Austria  was  not;  but 
as  she  could  not  make  public  the  real 
grounds  for  her  objections  to  the  auton- 

*  We  may  attribute  this  to  the   foreign  secretary,  Lord 
Derby,  rather  than  to  the  premier. 


io8  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

omy  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  she  ob- 
tained a  definition  that  it  was  local  ad- 
ministrative reform,  not  political  auton- 
omy, that  was  meant ;  and  she  instructed 
her  representatives  to  observe  a  passive 
attitude. 

The  official  opening  of  the  conference  at 
Constantinople  was  preceded  by  prelimi- 
nary sessions  from  which  the  Turks  were 
excluded:  a  proceeding  naturally  offensive 
to  them,  but  necessary,  as  they  could  not 
well  be  permitted  to  take  part  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  what  terms  were  to  be  imposed 
upon  them.  For  once  English  and  Rus- 
sian diplomacy  were  in  harmony.  Lord 
Salisbury,  the  chief  British  representative, 
displayed  a  zeal  for  reform  that  was  in 
rather  surprising  contrast  to  the  recent  at- 
titude of  the  government  he  represented. 
He  and  Count  Ignatiev  worked  hand  in 
hand,  with  the  result  that  the  powers 
agreed  upon  a  series  of  demands  that 
were  to  be  presented  to  the  Turks.  Mere 
promises  of  amelioration  could  no  longer 


THE  CONSTANTINOPLE  CONFERENCE       log 

be  accepted.  Europe  knew  by  this  time 
that  "the  whole  history  of  the  Ottoman 
empire,  since  it  was  admitted  into  the 
European  concert  under  the  engagements 
of  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  has  proved  that 
the  Porte  is  unable  to  guarantee  the  exe- 
cution of  reforms  in  the  provinces  by 
Turkish  officials,  who  accept  them  with 
reluctance,  and  neglect  them  with  im- 
punity." *  The  powers  now  insisted  not 
only  on  local  autonomy  and  improvement 
of  administration,  but  also  on  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  foreign  supervising  commission 
to  see  that  their  decrees  were  carried  out. 
These  unpalatable  demands  were  pre- 
sented to  the  Turks  at  the  first  'full' 
meeting  of  the  conference  (December  23). 
But  proceedings  were  soon  interrupted  by 
the  sound  of  the  booming  of  cannon. 
Whereupon  Safet  Pasha,  Turkish  foreign 
minister,  informed  his  astonished  hearers 
that  they  were  listening  to  a  salute  fired 

*  Instructions  of  Lord  Derby  to  Lord  Salisbury,  Parlia- 
mentary Papers,  1877,  xci,  Turkey,  No.  2,  p.  7. 


no  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


in  honor  of  the  constitution  which  His 
Majesty,  the  Suhan,  had  just  conferred 
upon  the  peoples  under  his  rule.  It  was, 
indeed,  deserving  of  a  salute,  for  it  was  all 
that  it  should  be,  modern  and  democratic, 
granting  not  only  representative  govern- 
ment but  full  and  equal  rights  to  every 
race  and  creed  in  the  transformed  Otto- 
man state.  Compared  with  what  it  be- 
stowed, the  reforms  insisted  upon  by  the 
powers  looked  insignificant  enough;  but 
as  its  blessings  were  for  all,  it  made  no 
mention  of  special  autonomies,  and,  of 
course,  foreign  control  was  inconceivable. 
The  only  immediate  effect  of  this  the- 
atrical stroke  was  to  irritate  the  members 
of  the  conference,  who  regarded  the  whole 
thing  as  a  farce  and  continued  to  press 
their  demands.  On  January  13,  1877, 
they  presented  them,  with  some  modifi- 
cations, as  an  ultimatum.  But  the  Turks 
stuck  to  their  ground,  refusing  to  tolerate 
foreign  interference  and  claiming  that  the 
Sultan  had  of  his  own  free  will  conferred 


AMBASSADORS  LEAVE  CONSTANTINOPLE     iii 

on  his  subjects,  Christian  as  well  as  Mo- 
hammedan, far  more  than  the  powers  had 
asked  for.  Even  the  solemn  departure  of 
all  the  ambassadors  from  Constantinople 
failed  to  affect  their  attitude  of  flat  de- 
fiance. The  Turks  did  not  believe  that 
Europe  could  or  would  do  anything. 

In  this  belief  they  were  right  as  re- 
garded Europe  as  a  whole,  but  one  power 
had  gone  too  far  to  retreat.  Genuine  as 
was  his  reluctance  at  being  drawn  into 
war,  Alexander  II  felt  that  his  dignity 
and  that  of  his  country  made  it  impossi- 
ble for  him  to  submit  tamely  to  further 
rebuffs.  He  would  have  liked  to  act  as 
the  mandatory  of  Europe,  but  though  the 
other  powers  had  joined  in  diplomatic 
notes  and  had  even  withdrawn  their  rep- 
resentatives from  Constantinople,  they 
would  go  no  further.  Russia  had  to  act 
alone,  at  her  own  risk  and  peril;  and, 
above  all,  before  launching  herself  upon 
the  enterprise,  she  must  take  into  ac- 
count the  attitude  of  Austria. 


112  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

And  that  attitude  by  this  time  was 
clear  enough.  The  government  at  Vi- 
enna not  only  was  determined  to  take  no 
action  itself,  but  also  had  no  intention  of 
granting  a  free  hand  to  its  ally.  Its  posi- 
tion was  a  disagreeably  strong  one.  The 
geographical  situation  of  Austria  on  the 
flank  of  the  Russian  armies  made  it  un- 
safe for  them  to  venture  into  the  Balkan 
Peninsula  unless  assured  of  her  neutrality, 
and  if  the  Tsar  in  his  anger  should  turn 
them  first  against  her,  not  only  would  she 
have  the  probable  help  of  England,  but 
she  could  at  the  last  resort  count  on  the 
protection  of  Germany.  It  was  all  very 
well  for  Bismarck  to  declare,  as  he  did  in 
his  celebrated  speech  to  the  Reichstag  of 
December  5,  1876,  that  for  Germany  the 
whole  Eastern  Question  was  not  worth 
the  bones  of  one  Pomeranian  grenadier. 
He  might  proclaim  her  equal  friendship 
for  both  her  allies  and  her  desire  to  main- 
tain good  relations  between  them.  None 
the  less,  he  had  made  his  choice  and  let  it 


THE  RUSSO-AUSTRIAN  AGREEMENT        113 

be  understood  that  in  case  of  a  conflict,  if 
the  integrity  of  Austria  were  threatened, 
Germany  would  take  up  arms  in  her  be- 
half.* It  is  true  this  did  not  prevent  him 
from  continually  repeating  in  public,  and 
still  more  in  his  interviews  with  the  Rus- 
sian ambassador,  the  assurances  of  his 
warm  friendship  for  Russia  and  his  desire 
to  serve  her.  He  also,  in  these  inter- 
views, gave  his  advice  in  favor  of  a  war 
with  Turkey.f 

The  result  of  all  this  was  that  after 
some  negotiation  two  Russo-Austrian 
agreements  were  concluded.  The  first, 
which  was  signed  at  Vienna  on  January 
15,  1877,  provided  that,  in  case  of  war, 
Austria  would  observe  an  attitude  of 
friendly  neutrality  and  would  give  diplo- 
matic support;  but  it  was  stipulated  that 
though  Serbia  and  Montenegro  might  ren- 
der military  aid,  their  territories  must  not 

*  He  expressed  himself  definitely  in  this  sense  at  a  parlia- 
mentary dinner  (December  l),  and  in  accordance  with  his 
wishes,  his  words  were  widely  quoted  in  the  newspapers. 

t  Tatishchev,  Alexander  II  (in  Russian),  ii,  pp.  349-354. 


114  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

be  used  by  Russian  troops  as  a  base  6f 
operations.  This  meant,  to  use  a  term 
not  then  invented,  that  they  were  not  to 
be  regarded  as  in  the  Russian  *  sphere  of 
influence.'  In  a  second  agreement,  not 
signed  till  three  months  later,  but  re- 
garded as  an  integral  part  of  the  first  and 
antedated  accordingly,  it  was  stipulated, 
as  at  Reichstadt,  that  in  case  of  a  dis- 
memberment of  the  Ottoman  empire,  Ser- 
bia and  Montenegro  were,  indeed,  to  ob- 
tain some  enlargement,  but  that  Austria 
should  have  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina, 
while  Russia  was  to  get  back  the  part  of 
Bessarabia  she  had  been  forced  to  cede 
in  1856.* 

Once  more  Count  Andrassy  and  his 
master  had  cause  to  feel  satisfied  and 
doubtless  did  so,  even  though  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph  in  a  telegram  to  the  Tsar 

*  Russia  was  also  to  have  Batum  and  the  adjacent  terri- 
tory, but  by  Gorchakov's  express  wish  this  was  not  men- 
tioned in  the  compact,  which  had  to  do  with  the  European 
and  not  the  Asiatic  territories  of  the  Porte.     Wertheimer,  ii, 

P-  393- 


LAST  EFFORTS  TO  AVERT  WAR  115 

expressed  the  fervent  hope  that  these 
agreements  might  never  have  to  be  car- 
ried out  and  that  their  efforts  to  maintain 
peace  might  yet  succeed.  Alexander  II, 
indeed,  still  hesitated.*  The  excited  pub- 
lic urged  him  to  action;  but  he  and  his 
ministers  realized  that  Russia  had  not 
yet  recovered  from  the  wounds  of  the 
Crimean  war.  Her  army  was  not  thor- 
oughly reorganized,  her  finances  were  in 
bad  condition,  even  the  emancipation  of 
the  serfs  and  the  other  great  reforms  of 
the  earlier  years  of  his  reign  had  been  fol- 
lowed after  the  first  enthusiasm  by  dis- 
appointment and  discontent,  and  there 
were  already  dangerous  symptoms  of 
revolutionary  agitation.  All  these  facts 
made  the  position  of  Alexander  II  and 
his  chancellor  a  difficult  one. 

The  Tsar  accordingly  made  a  last  effort 
to  bring  about  a  peaceful  solution.  On 
March  31a  document  was  drawn  up  in 

*  The  beginning  of  the  winter  was  the  worst  season  for  the 
opening  of  military  operations. 


ii6  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

London  embodying  a  final  appeal  to  the 
Porte.  The  proposal  for  a  foreign  com- 
mission was  dropped,  and  was  replaced 
by  a  mere  threat  of  further  action  in  case 
the  reforms  demanded  were  not  carried 
out.  All  the  other  powers  adhered  to 
this  protocol,  though  without  much  en- 
thusiasm, perhaps  even  without  the  wish 
that  it  should  succeed.  The  situation 
was  further  complicated  by  what  the 
Turks  regarded  as  an  unfair  demand  for 
their  demobilization  before  that  of  Rus- 
sia. At  any  rate,  the  Sultan,  supported 
by  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  parliament 
he  had  summoned  under  the  new  consti- 
tution, had  now  determined  to  refuse  all 
concessions.  On  April  lo,  1877;  the  Porte 
answered  the  powers  in  a  circular  note  in 
which  it  refused  to  tolerate  any  foreign 
interference  in  its  internal  affairs,  and 
three  days  later  it  notified  Montenegro 
that  the  existing  armistice  had  come  to 
an  end.  On  April  24  Russia  declared 
war. 


OUTBREAK  OF  THE  RUSSO-TURKISH  WAR    117 

The  position  of  Russia  at  the  outbreak 
of  hostilities  was  not  particularly  favor- 
able from  either  a  political  or  a  military 
standpoint.  By  considerable  sacrifices 
she  had  secured  for  the  time  being  the 
neutrality  of  Austria,  but  that  neutrality 
was  in  no  true  sense  friendly,  and  it  was 
provisional,  dependent  on  the  highly  un- 
certain course  of  events.  From  the  Brit- 
ish came  the  word  "that  the  decision  of 
the  Russian  government  is  not  one  which 
can  have  their  concurrence  or  approval,"* 
and  Lord  Derby  gave  formal  warning 
against  the  inclusion  of  Egypt  or  the  Suez 
Canal  in  the  sphere  of  hostilities,  or  the 
occupation  of  Constantinople,  or  any 
change  in  the  treaties  of  1856.  The  atti- 
tude of  Germany  was  one  of  ostentatious 
disinterestedness,  that  is  to  say,  lack  of 
interest.  France  and  Italy  did  not  need 
to  be  taken  into  serious  consideration. 

On  paper,  at  least,  the  army  Russia 
could  put  into  the  field  was  much  larger 

*  Parliamentary  Papers,  1877,  xci,  Turkey,  No.  18,  p.  4. 


ii8  TEE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

than  that  of  her  adversary,  and,  thanks 
to  the  introduction  of  railways,  it  could 
be  conveyed  to  the  front  with  far  greater 
ease  than  in  any  of  her  previous  wars. 
That  front,  however,  was  a  contracted 
one,  owing  to  the  agreement  with  Austria 
which  precluded  the  use  of  Serbian  terri- 
tory for  military  purposes.  Russia,  too, 
had  not  since  regaining  her  liberty  of  ac- 
tion by  the  Treaty  of  London  of  187 1  had 
time  to  rebuild  a  Black  Sea  fleet  capable 
of  meeting  the  entire  Turkish  navy,  which 
could  be  concentrated  against  it.  She 
was,  therefore,  unable  to  bring  troops  and 
supplies  by  water  or  to  hamper  the  Turks 
in  this  respect.  The  only  way  in  which 
she  could  reach  the  European  territory  of 
her  foe  was  through  a  Turkish  vassal 
state,  the  principality  of  Rumania. 

Rumania  had  to  make  up  her  mind  as 
to  what  would  be  the  wisest  policy  to 
pursue  under  the  circumstances.  Russia 
had  repeatedly  invaded  the  principality 
in  former  wars,  and  had  even  occupied 


RUMANIA  iiQ 


it  for  years  at  a  time,  and  had  now  no 
thought  of  allowing  her  sole  passageway 
to  the  Balkan  Peninsula  to  be  barred  by 
any  desire  of  Rumania  for  neutrality.  At- 
tempts at  resistance  on  her  part  would 
be  hopeless,  even  with  Turkish  aid,  and 
would  bring  her  misfortune;  mere  pas- 
sive acquiescence  offered  only  negative 
advantages;  but  actual  collaboration  with 
Russia  promised  the  much  desired  boon 
of  complete  emancipation  from  Turkish 
sovereignty.  She  therefore  decided  to 
conclude  a  treaty  providing  for  the  free 
passage  of  Russian  troops,  and  when  the 
Turks  resented  this  as  an  act  of  hostility 
and  bombarded  Rumanian  forts  across 
the  Danube,  she  declared  war  on  her 
own  account.  Difficulties  about  subordi- 
nation, however,  as  well  as  the  Russian 
contempt  for  the  untried  Rumanian  mili- 
tia, and  disinclination  to  share  with  them 
the  glory  of  the  campaign,  resulted  in 
their  not  taking  part  at  first  in  military 
operations. 


120  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

In  the  spring  of  1877  the  mihtary  repu- 
tation of  the  Turks  did  not  stand  high. 
For  the  last  two  hundred  years  they  had 
been  defeated  by  inferior  numbers  in  al- 
most every  important  battle  they  had 
fought — not  only  by  Europeans,  but  even, 
not  long  before,  by  the  unwarlike  Egyp- 
tians. The  glories  of  their  earlier  tri- 
umphs had  thus  become  much  dimmed. 
It  was  known  that  they  were  brave  and 
could  defend  fortifications  obstinately, 
but  their  discipline  was  loose,  their  offi- 
cers were  ill  trained,  and  the  progressive 
disorganization  of  the  Ottoman  empire  in 
the  last  twenty  years  did  not  promise  well 
for  the  efficiency  of  the  troops.  The  Rus- 
sians accordingly  were  confident  of  rapid 
and  easy  success,  and  they  made  the  mis- 
take of  undertaking  their  campaigns  in 
both  Europe  and  Asia  with  insufficient 
forces.  Such  ventures  have  often  been 
justified  by  the  outcome  and  might  well 
have  been  in  this  case,  but  when  such 
risks  are  run  a  single  check  may  lead  to 
grave  disaster. 


PLEVNA  121 


The  campaign  began  brilliantly.  With 
little  difficulty  the  Russians  succeeded  in 
crossing  the  Danube,  they  rapidly  over- 
ran much  of  northern  Bulgaria,  seized 
some  of  the  Balkan  passes,  and  made  a 
daring  raid  beyond.  But  the  Turks,  who 
in  history  have  more  than  once  surprised 
the  world  both  favorably  and  unfavor- 
ably, rallied  in  an  unexpected  manner.  A 
small  Russian  force  incautiously  attacked 
a  much  larger  Turkish  one  under  Osman 
Pasha  in  an  important  strategic  position 
at  Plevna  and  was  shattered.  When 
more  men  had  been  hastily  gathered 
and  the  onslaught  was  renewed  ten  days 
later,  the  result  was  a  second  and  more 
serious  defeat.  For  a  time  the  situation 
was  critical,  as  the  Turks  now  took  the 
offensive  and  the  Russian  armies  were  in 
danger  of  being  thrown  back  shamefully 
across  the  Danube.  In  Asia,  too,  they 
presently  met  with  a  sharp  check  and  had 
to  retreat  to  within  their  own  frontiers. 
In  both  fields  weeks  must  elapse  before 


122  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

considerable  reenforcements  could  be 
brought  up. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  Rus- 
sians, putting  their  pride  in  their  pockets, 
appealed  to  Rumania  for  aid.  This  was 
granted  on  terms  highly  honorable  to  the 
Rumanians,  and,  assisted  by  the  lack  of 
capacity  shown  by  the  Turkish  generals, 
saved  the  situation.  The  Russian  and 
Rumanian  forces  did,  indeed,  fail  in  a 
third  assault  on  Plevna,  one  of  the  great 
battles  of  the  nineteenth  century;  but 
they  kept  their  ground,  and  on  the  arrival 
of  fresh  troops  they  turned  the  attack  into 
a  siege.  The  Turks  held  out  through  the 
autumn,  till  at  last,  on  December  lo,  Os- 
man  Pasha,  after  a  fierce  belated  attempt  to 
cut  his  way  through,  surrendered  his  army. 

After  this  events  followed  each  other 
swiftly.  The  Russians,  heedless  of  the 
rigors  of  a  winter  campaign  in  the  moun- 
tains, gave  their  disorganized  enemies  no 
respite,  and  forced  their  way  across  the 
Balkans,   routed  the  Turks   in  one   en- 


RUSSIAN   VICTORIES  123 

gagement  after  another,  and  pressed  on 
toward  Constantinople.  The  tide  had 
also  turned  in  Asia,  where  the  Turks  were 
defeated  in  battle  and  the  fortress  of 
Kars  was  taken  by  storm.  Serbia  now 
joined  in  the  war,  and  Greece  was  stirring. 

European  diplomacy,  which  had  been 
waiting  on  the  course  of  military  events, 
now  awoke  to  feverish  activity.  Austria 
and  Great  Britain,  in  particular,  were 
resolved  not  to  accept  any  solution  dis- 
advantageous to  their  interests.  They 
asserted  that  the  status  of  the  Eastern 
Question  was  part  of  the  public  law  of 
Europe,  as  established  by  the  Congress  of 
Paris  in  1856,  supplemented  by  the  con- 
ference in  London  in  1871,  and  that  no 
changes  could  be  made  in  it  without  the 
consent  of  all  the  signatories.  They 
wished,  indeed,  to  be  consulted  by  Russia 
in  advance,  that  is  to  say,  to  have  a  voice 
in  the  negotiations. 

As  the  foreign  offices  at  Vienna  and 
London  held  much  the  same  views,  they 


124  ^^^   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


kept  in  close  touch  with  one  another. 
London  would  have  liked  to  take  common 
action,  and  proposed  this  as  early  as  May 
20,  1877.  Andrassy,  however,  suspected 
the  British  government  of  having  in  mind 
the  exigencies  of  home  politics  and  of  de- 
siring his  aid  in  order  to  obtain  a  diplo- 
matic and  parliamentary  triumph  for  its 
own  selfish  benefit.*  He  did  not  wish  to 
alienate  too  completely  the  Slavs  in  the 
Balkan  Peninsula,  and  to  make  them  feel 
that  Russia  was  their  only  friend.  More- 
over, the  relations  of  Austria  with  Russia 
were  not  the  same  as  those  of  England. 
Great  Britain  and  Russia  were  still  at 
peace  with  one  another  and  maintained 
correct  official  intercourse,  but  that  was 
about  all.  There  was  no  pretense  of  cor- 
diality between  them,  and  one  disagree- 
able act  more  or  less  meant  little.  But 
Austria  was  theoretically  an  ally  of  Russia 
and  did  not  wish  to  give  unnecessary  of- 
fence.    Besides,    unknown    to    London, 

*  Wertheimer,  iii,  p.  28. 


GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  AUSTRIA  125 

Andrassy  had  in  reserve  his  agreement  of 
January  15,  which,  if  it  were  carried  out, 
as  he  meant  that  it  should  be,  would  safe- 
guard Austrian  interests.  It  was  better 
to  wait  and  to  watch  the  course  of  events, 
while  not  neglecting  precautions  for  the 
future.  He  therefore  declined  all  English 
suggestions  of  immediate  alliance,  and 
proposed  instead  a  secret  interchange  of 
declarations  by  which  the  two  powers 
bound  themselves  to  uniform  but  separate 
diplomatic,  and,  if  need  be  in  the  future, 
to  joint  military  action.* 

To  this  suggestion  the  English  agreed. 
For  many  reasons  they  were  anxious  to 
see  the  war  brought  to  an  end  as  soon  as 
possible.  While  deeply  disliking  and  dis- 
trusting Russia  and  determined  to  oppose 
her  advance,  they  did  feel  a  certain  sym- 
pathy for  the  Christians  under  Turkish 
rule  and  for  their  aspirations,  whereas 
Austria's  foreign  policy  has  seldom  been 
affected  by  such  sentiments.     The  Eng- 

*  Wertheimer,  iii,  p.  39. 


126  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

lish  cabinet,  moreover,  was  not  united  as 
to  what  it  should  do,  or  just  how  far  Rus- 
sia should  be  allowed  to  go  in  weakening 
the  Ottoman  empire.  The  prime  min- 
ister himself.  Lord  Beaconsfield,  who 
throughout  favored  vigorous  action,  was 
nevertheless  disturbed  by  the  fear,  felt 
likewise  in  France,  that  Bismarck  rejoiced 
in  the  whole  Eastern  complication  and 
wished  to  profit  by  it  in  order  to  attack 
the  French  at  a  moment  when  they  could 
obtain  no  outside  help.  On  one  point  the 
English  government  was  clear;  under  no 
circumstances  would  it  permit  the  Rus- 
sians to  get  into  the  Mediterranean;  that 
is  to  say,  it  would  not  consent  to  any 
change  in  the  clauses  of  the  Treaty  of 
Paris  which  closed  the  Straits  to  Russian 
ships  of  war.  For  the  same  reason,  it  was 
opposed  to  the  creation  of  a  strong  Slavic 
state,  especially  to  one  on  both  sides  of 
the  Balkans  and  with  a  seaport  on  the 
^gean,  for  it  believed  that  this  state 
would  be  a  vassal  of  Russia,  its  creator. 


GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  AUSTRIA  127 

Here  Austria  was  equally  determined. 
There  must  not  be  a  Great  Serbia  or  a 
Great  Bulgaria  that  included  Macedonia. 
Such  a  state,  besides  being  a  natural  ally 
of  Russia,  would  be  a  bar  to  the  exten- 
sion of  Austrian  influence  to  the  south- 
ward, and  might  even  serve  as  a  centre 
of  encouragement  to  discontented  Slavic 
elements  in  the  Dual  Empire. 

On  the  8th  of  June,  1877,  before  her 
armies  had  even  passed  the  Danube,  Rus- 
sia had  informed  England  as  to  the  con- 
ditions under  which  she  would  be  willing 
to  concede  peace  to  the  Turks,  provided 
they  asked  for  it  before  her  troops  had 
crossed  the  Balkans.  These  conditions, 
which  in  the  main  corresponded  with 
those  in  the  agreement  with  Austria,  were 
not  accepted  by  England  as  satisfactory, 
but  the  matter  rested  for  a  time.  The 
disasters  at  Plevna  made  immediate  dis- 
cussion superfluous.  But  when  at  last 
Osman  Pasha  surrendered  and  the  Rus- 
sians swarmed  across  the  mountains,  cap- 


128  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

turing  or  driving  before  them  without 
respite  whatever  was  left  of  the  Turkish 
armies,  both  Austria  and  England  began 
to  make  pressing  inquiries  as  to  Russian 
intentions  and  to  intimate  that  they 
themselves  ought  to  be  consulted. 

The  demand  was  most  unwelcome.  It 
often  happens  toward  the  close  of  a  war 
that  interested  third  parties  not  only- 
proffer  their  good  offices  to  bring  hostili- 
ties to  an  end,  but  even  insist  that  they 
have  the  right  to  be  heard  regarding  the 
terms  of  peace.  Such  intervention  may 
be  hailed  by  the  defeated  combatant,  but 
the  victorious  one  fears  and  dislikes  it 
and  rejects  it  if  he  can.  In  1871  Bis- 
marck had  been  worried  over  the  danger 
that  some  other  nation  might  try  to  med- 
dle in  the  peace  negotiations  between 
Germany  and  France.  In  1878  the  Rus- 
sians had  special  reasons  for  resenting  any 
attempt  to  rob  them  of  the  fruits  of  suc- 
cess. They  believed  that  they  had  done 
alone  what  had  been  the  duty  of  all  Eu- 


FEELING  IN  RUSSIA  129 

rope,  and  yet  they  had  been  refused  as- 
sistance or  even  a  mandate  from  the  other 
powers,  though  all  had  made  the  same 
demands  and  had  met  with  the  same  re- 
buffs. The  war  had  proved  more  diffi- 
cult than  the  Russians  had  expected;  they 
had  suffered  heavy  losses  of  men  and 
money;  they  had  met  with  severe  reverses 
and  some  humiliations;  and  now  that  they 
had  finally  triumphed,  they  were  not  dis- 
posed to  let  those  who  should  have  helped, 
but  had  only  hampered  them,  dictate 
what  terms  of  peace  they  might  impose 
on  the  enemy.  The  Russian  public  knew 
nothing  of  any  secret  agreement  with 
Austria,  and  the  Russian  army,  after  what 
it  had  gone  through  and  had  achieved, 
was  as  anxious  to  enter  Constantinople  in 
triumph  as  the  German  one  had  been  to 
enter  Paris  in  1871.  Tsar  Alexander  II, 
in  the  correspondence  which  he  still  main- 
tained with  Emperor  Francis  Joseph, 
while  asserting  that  Russia  would  act  ac- 
cording to  the  spirit  of  the  agreement  of 


I30  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

January  15,  declared  that  after  all  that 
had  happened  it  could  not  be  carried  out 
to  the  letter.  On  January  26,  1878,  the 
Russians  officially  informed  Vienna  of  the 
demands  which  five  days  later  they  im- 
posed on  the  Tusks  by  the  armistice  of 
Adrianople. 

By  this  time  the  Turks  were  no  longer 
in  a  position  to  haggle  over  terms,  but 
Austria  and  England  were,  and  had  no 
thought  of  allowing  themselves  to  be 
brushed  aside.  On  February  3,  Andrassy, 
in  a  circular  note,  invited  the  powers  to 
an  internatianal  conference  at  Vienna. 
Russia,  though  agreeing  to  the  idea,  ob- 
jected to  Vienna  as  a  meeting  place,  and 
it  was  decided  to  hold,  not  a  conference, 
but  a  formal  congress  of  the  powers  at 
Berlin.  The  international  situation  was 
alarming.  On  January  28  the  English 
ministry  had  asked  Parliament  for  an 
additional  military  grant  of  six  million 
pounds.  Five  days  earlier  the  British  fleet 
had  been  ordered   to   pass   the   Darda- 


CONDITIONS  IN  THE  BALKANS  131 

nelles.  The  order  had  been  recalled,  but 
on  February  7  It  was  repeated  and  was 
carried  out.  The  Russians  answered  by 
declaring  that  if  the  English  entered  the 
Bosphorus,  they  themselves  would  oc- 
cupy Constantinople.  The  forces  of  the 
two  nations  were  now  almost  in  sight  of 
one  another,  and  any  step  forward  on  the 
part  of  either  would  have  led  to  immedi- 
ate war.  The  Balkan  Peninsula  was  in  a 
state  of  wild  confusion.  The  Bulgarians 
had  begun  to  take  sanguinary  revenge  on 
their  enemies  for  the  outrages  they  had 
suffered,  and  the  Mohammedans  retali- 
ated when  strong  enough  to  do  so.  A 
Greek  army  invaded  Thessaly,  only  to  be 
withdrawn  at  the  urgent  remonstrance  of 
the  powers,  and  the  promise  that  the  in- 
terests of  Greece  should  be  looked  after 
at  the  general  settlement.  Meanwhile 
the  Russians,  undeterred  by  the  prepara- 
tions against  them  and  by  the  forthcom- 
ing congress,  continued  their  negotiations 
with  the  representatives  of  the  Sultan,  till 


132  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

on  March  3  they  concluded  the  Peace  of 
San  Stefano. 

By  the  terms  of  this  treaty  Russia  was 
to  receive  a  war  indemnity  of  1,410,000,- 
000  roubles,  an  uncertain  asset  in  view  of 
the  state  of  Turkish  finances;  but  1,100,- 
000,000  of  it  were  to  be  commuted  for  the 
district  of  the  Dobrudja  in  eastern  Bul- 
garia, and  for  a  territory  in  Asia  including 
the  fortress  of  Kars,  the  port  of  Batum, 
and  the  town  of  Bayazid.  Rumania  was 
to  obtain  her  independence,  but  was  to 
cede  Bessarabia  to  Russia  and  receive  the 
Dobrudja  in  exchange.  Serbia  and  Mon- 
tenegro were  to  have  independence  and 
an  accession  of  territory.  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina  were  to  get  reform  and  au- 
tonomy. Most  important  of  all  was  the 
creation  of  a  large  Bulgarian  vassal  prin- 
cipality, extending  to  the  ^Egean  and  to 
the  frontiers  of  Albania.  Until  it  was 
organized  it  was  to  be  occupied  by  Rus- 
sian troops,  for  as  long  as  two  years  if 
necessary. 


THE  PEACE  OF  SAN  STEP  A  NO  133 

The  news  of  this  treaty  excited  loud 
clamors.  Mohammedans  in  Bulgaria, 
Greeks,  Rumanians,  and  even  Serbians 
protested  violently.  These  outcries  Rus- 
sia could  disregard,  but  not  the  opposition 
of  England,  who  now  refused  to  attend 
the  proposed  congress  unless  the  whole 
San  Stefano  agreement  should  be  sub- 
mitted to  it  for  discussion  and  modifica- 
tion. On  April  i  Lord  Salisbury,  who 
had  succeeded  Lord  Derby  as  foreign  sec- 
retary, sent  a  circular  note  to  the  pow- 
ers, sharply  criticising  the  treaty.  Mili- 
tary preparations  were  feverishly  pushed. 
Lord  Beaconsfield  startled  Europe  by  the 
despatch  of  Indian  troops  to  Malta,  as  an 
indication  that  in  case  of  hostilities  Brit- 
ain could  count  on  the  resources  not  only 
of  the  United  Kingdom  but  of  her  whole 
vast  empire — a  foretaste  of  what  she  was 
to  do  on  a  much  larger  scale  a  generation 
later.  Andrassy,  on  his  part,  made  no 
secret  of  his  opposition  to  the  terms  of 
peace  as  they  stood,  and  called  on  the 


134  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

Austro-Hungarian  delegations  for  an  ex- 
tra military  credit  of  60,000,000  gulden. 
The  government  of  Tsar  Alexander  II 
now  found  itself  in  just  the  position  it  had 
feared  from  the  beginning,  but  had  not 
succeeded  in  avoiding.  Its  victorious 
armies  stretched  as  far  as  the  gates  of 
Constantinople,  but  their  flanks  and  rear 
were  at  the  mercy  of  an  Austrian  attack; 
and  whereas  Russia  could  not  count  on  an 
ally,  Austria  would  be  joined  by  England, 
and  also  by  Rumania,  who  was  intensely 
exasperated  at  seeing  the  aid  she  had  fur- 
nished at  a  critical  moment  requited  by  a 
demand  for  a  cession  of  her  territory. 
Worst  of  all  was  the  patent  fact  that  Bis- 
marck stood  behind  Austria.  He  had 
encouraged  the  policy  of  Andrassy  from 
the  start;  indeed,  he  has  been  accused 
of  having  suggested  it;  this  is  probably 
an  exaggeration,  but  it  is  easy  to  un- 
derstand why  he  should  have  wished 
to  turn  the  energies  and  ambitions  of 
Austria  to  the  eastward,  and  even  have 


THE  PEACE  OF  SAN  STEFANO  135 


looked  upon  her,  up  to  a  certain  point, 
as  the  German  advance  guard  in  that 
part  of  the  world.  None  could  say  when 
he  would  think  the  time  had  come  for  the 
formidable  intervention  of  Germany,  an 
intervention  that  might  have  results  for 
Russia  far  more  disastrous  than  those  of 
the  Crimean  war. 

England  by  herself  was  less  to  be 
feared.  She  could  hardly  send  aid  suffi- 
cient to  enable  the  Turks  to  prolong  their 
resistance  with  success,  and  the  Russians 
believed  that  from  Central  Asia  they 
could  make  trouble  for  her  in  Afghanistan 
and  India.*  But  her  demands  were  so 
much  like  those  of  Austria  that  it  was 
probable  that  if  either  state  took  up 
arms  it  would  have  the  support  of  the 
other.  The  conflict  that  had  just  ended 
had  proved  unexpectedly  costly  in  blood 

*  Skobelev,  the  most  brilliant  Russian  general,  and  one  with 
Asiatic  experience,  had  made  a  plan  for  the  invasion  of  India 
which  he  believed  feasible.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the 
Russian  mission  was  sent  to  Kabul  which  alarmed  England 
and  led  to  the  second  Afghan  war. 


136  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


and  treasure,  Russia  was  exhausted,  her 
finances  were  in  bad  shape,  and  her  victo- 
rious army  near  Constantinople  was  meh- 
ing  away  by  disease,  while  before  its  eyes 
the  city,  at  first  almost  undefended,  was 
being  provided  with  fortifications  which 
grew  more  formidable  with  every  week 
that  passed.  Rage  as  the  Russian  gov- 
ernment and  people  might,  the  perils  of 
a  general  war  were  too  great  for  them  to 
face,  except  at  the  last  extremity.  To 
avoid  disaster  they  must  come  to  some 
sort  of  terms  with  their  rivals. 

Bismarck,  with  his  usual  common  sense, 
had  insisted  that  the  Congress  of  Berlin 
should  not  meet  until  all  serious  points  in 
dispute  had  been  settled  by  preliminary 
agreement.  Gradually  this  was  accom- 
plished. Though  England  yielded  more 
than  had  been  expected  at  St.  Petersburg, 
most  of  the  concessions  were  made  by 
Russia,  who  by  three  secret  compacts, 
signed  in  London  on  May  30,  gave  up 
her  creation   of  a   Great  Bulgaria,  but 


THE  CYPRUS  CONVENTION  13/ 

kept  Bessarabia  in  Europe  and  Batum 
and  Kars  (but  not  Bayazid)  in  Asia. 

But  while  the  British  government  was 
reducing  the  gains  of  Russia,  it  was  also 
providing  itself  with  securities  for  the 
future.  By  the  Cyprus  Convention,* 
signed  June  4,  it  guaranteed  to  the  Turks 
from  Russian  aggression  the  rest  of  their 
possessions  in  Asia,  in  return  for  which 
the  Porte  undertook  "to  introduce  neces- 
sary reforms,  to  be  agreed  upon  later  be- 
tween the  two  powers,  into  the  govern- 
ment, and  for  the  protection  of  the  Chris- 
tian and  other  subjects  of  the  Forte  in 
these  territories."  And  in  order  that 
Great  Britain  might  the  more  easily  de- 
fend and  protect  these  territories  (the 
Turks  knew  nothing  of  the  Anglo-Russian 
arrangement  signed  five  days  before),  she 
was  to  receive  the  island  of  Cyprus  to 
occupy  and  administer.  Having  thus 
sanctioned  in  her  own  case  the  principle  of 

*  Also  called  the  Convention  of  Constantinople.     Parlia- 
mentary Papers,  1878,  Ixxxii,  Turkey,  no.  36,  pp.  3,  4. 


138  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


appropriating  Turkish  lands  for  the  good 
of  the  Ottoman  empire,  she  was  in  a  posi- 
tion to  advocate  it  in  the  case  of  her 
friends,  and  two  days  later,  in  one  more 
secret  agreement,  she  promised  to  sup- 
port the  views  of  Austria  in  regard  to 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina. 

After  the  main  difficulties  had  been  sur- 
mounted in  advance,  the  representatives 
of  Europe  could  meet  with  the  expecta- 
tion of  a  happy  result  from  their  labors. 
The  celebrated  Congress  of  Berlin  was  a 
gathering  of  very  distinguished  and  able 
men,  Beaconsfield,  Gorchakov,  Andrassy, 
Salisbury,  and  various  minor  lights, 
presided  over  with  masterful  vigor  and 
tact  by  Prince  Bismarck,  then  at  the  full 
height  of  his  genius  and  his  fame.  He 
had  hoped  that  the  proceedings  would 
last  but  a  few  days,  and  would  consist  in 
the  prompt  ratification  of  the  bargains 
made  between  the  great  powers,  and  in 
the  submission  to  them  by  the  smaller 
ones,  whose  representatives  were  only  al- 


THE  CONGRESS  OF  BERLIN  139 

lowed  to  appear  before  the  Congress,  but 
not  to  take  part  in  it.  Yet  in  spite  of  the 
ruthless  energy  with  which  Bismarck 
pushed  matters  through,  the  Congress 
lasted  for  a  month  (June  13  to  July  13), 
and  there  were  several  disagreeable  and 
even  critical  moments  before  everything 
was  settled.  The  Bulgarian  question,  as 
the  most  difficult,  was  taken  up  first,  and 
some  time  passed  before  every  one  was 
agreed  as  to  just  what  boundaries  and 
rights  should  be  assigned  to  the  three 
parts  into  which  the  Great  Bulgaria  of 
San  Stefano  was  to  be  divided:  namel}^,  a 
vassal  Bulgarian  principality,  an  autono- 
mous province  of  Eastern  Rumelia,  and  a 
Macedonia.  This  last  was  handed  back 
to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Turks,  with 
no  protection  except  promises  of  reforms 
that  were  never  to  be  carried  out,  and 
that  did  not  preserve  it  from  another 
thirty  years  of  constantly  increasing  op- 
pression and  misery.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Turks  had  a  painful  surprise  when  by 


I40  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

previous  arrangement  their  friend,  Great 
Britain,  proposed  that  Bosnia  and  Herze- 
govina should  be  handed  over  to  their 
other  friend,  Austria.  When  they  at- 
tempted to  object  they  were  browbeaten 
by  Bismarck  and  freely  lectured  on  the 
dangers  of  obstinacy.  Russia,  bound  by 
her  agreements,  was  unable  to  do  anything, 
and  the  Turks,  left  unsupported,  yielded 
in  the  end.  It  was  voted  that  Austria 
should  occupy  and  administer  the  two 
provinces,  and  should  also  occupy  the  dis- 
trict of  Novibazar.  The  Rumanians  pro- 
tested in  vain  at  being  obliged  to  cede 
Bessarabia.  They  met  with  some  sym- 
pathy but  no  aid.  Serbia  and  Monte- 
negro were  granted  accessions  of  territory, 
and  Montenegro,  thanks  to  Russian  in- 
sistence, was  to  have  a  seaport  on  the 
Adriatic,  though  without  the  right  of 
policing  its  waters,  which  was  put  in  Aus- 
trian hands.  The  Russians  obtained  Kars 
and  Batum,  but  had  to  declare  an  inten- 
tion of  making  Batum  a  free  port.     Their 


THE  CONGRESS  OF  BERLIN  141 

war  indemnity  of  300,000,000  roubles  was 
left  to  them,  but  as  it  was  stipulated  that 
this  should  have  no  precedence  over  other 
Turkish  debts,  the  prospect  that  it  would 
ever  be  paid  was  remote. 

Shortly  before  the  Congress  came  to  a 
close,  it  was  astonished,  the  Russian  dele- 
gates most  disagreeably  so,  by  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  Cyprus  Convention. 
Other  territorial  changes  were  suggested 
in  private  discussion,  but  got  no  further. 
Various  minor  matters  were  attended  to, 
including  a  vague  promise  of  a  rectifica- 
tion of  boundary  for  the  Greeks  and  of 
reforms  for  the  Armenians,  and  a  stipula- 
tion that  whatever  was  left  of  the  decrees 
of  the  Congress  of  Paris  and  of  the  Lon- 
don Conference  should  be  still  regarded 
as  binding.  The  members  of  the  high 
assembly  then  departed  to  their  homes, 
among  them  Lord  Beaconsfield,  who  on 
his  return  proclaimed  to  an  admiring 
throng  that  he  had  brought  back  *  peace 
with  honor.' 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Congress  of  Berlin  in  1878  marks 
one  of  the  turning  points  in  the  history  of 
the  Eastern  Question.  The  changes  in 
the  map  made  or  consecrated  there  were 
almost  revolutionary  in  their  extent.  In 
1856,  at  the  Congress  of  Paris,  the  pow- 
ers had  attempted  to  rejuvenate  and  to 
fortify  the  Ottoman  empire.  They  had 
freed  it  from  the  Russian  menace,  they 
had  guaranteed  its  integrity,  they  had 
renounced  the  right  of  interference  in  its 
internal  affairs,  and  they  had  expressed 
kindly  approval  of  its  projects  of  reform. 
It  was  the  spoilt  child  of  Europe.  In 
1878  it  fared  differently.  Friends,  ene- 
mies, former  vassals,  while  squabbling 
with  each  other,  were  one  and  all  ready 
to   possess    themselves   of    its   territory. 

Its  wishes  were  the  last  thing  that  any 

142 


ATTITUDE  OF   THE   TURKS  143 

one  thought  of  consulting,  and  its  prom- 
ises imposed  upon  nobody.  No  wonder 
that  the  Turks  feh  every  man's  hand  to 
be  against  them,  and  that,  far  from  carry- 
ing out  the  mandates  of  the  Congress  in  a 
compHant  and  cheerful  manner,  they 
adopted  a  policy  of  passive  resistance, 
which  they  pushed  as  far  as  they  dared. 
Nothing  in  the  nature  of  reform  was  done 
or  even  attempted  for  Macedonia  or  Ar- 
menia; the  Bosnian  Mohammedans  were 
secretly  instigated  to  resist  Austrian  oc- 
cupation; the  Albanians  were  played  off 
against  the  demands  of  Montenegro,  un- 
til a  joint  naval  demonstration  of  the 
powers  and  the  threat  of  other  measures 
finally  brought  the  Porte  to  terms  and  to 
the  keeping  of  its  promises.  In  the  mat- 
ter of  the  extension  of  the  Greek  bound- 
ary, Turkey,  not  unnaturally,  showed  no 
inclination  to  grant  anything.  It  was  in 
vain  that  the  powers  took  up  the  matter 
and  decided  she  must  yield  Thessaly  and 
Epirus;  she  remained  obstinate,  till  in  the 


144  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

end  she  wore  down  their  insistence  and 
managed  by  a  final  agreement,  in  1880,  to 
keep  most  of  Epirus,  to  the  wrath  of  the 
Greeks. 

But  the  Turks  were  not  the  only  people 
dissatisfied  with  the  results  of  the  Con- 
gress. The  anger  of  the  Russians  was 
still  hotter.  They  had  fought  what  they 
believed  was  the  fight  of  Europe  and  of 
humanity,  they  had  shed  their  blood  and 
spent  their  treasure  without  stint,  and  in 
the  hour  of  victory  their  hand  had  been 
stayed,  the  other  nations  had  combined 
against  them,  their  fair  compensation  had 
been  cut  down,  while  their  jealous  rivals, 
Austria  and  England,  had  helped  them- 
selves to  whatever  Turkish  lands  were 
to  their  liking.  At  Berlin  Russia  had 
found  herself  without  a  friend.  Even 
Germany,  the  ally  who  owed  so  much 
to  her,  had  adopted  an  attitude  of  lofty 
neutrality,  which  was  only  a  mask  for  her 
support  of  Austria. 

Most  of  the   smaller  states  were   no 


BULGARIA  145 


better  pleased.  The  Bulgarians  had,  in- 
deed, not  a  little  to  be  thankful  for  when 
they  compared  their  situation  with  what 
it  had  been  two  years  earlier,  but  they  had 
seen  the  brimming  cup  dashed  from  their 
lips.  The  Great  Bulgaria  of  San  Stefano 
had  been  partitioned,  and  much  of  it  had 
been  handed  back  more  or  less  completely 
to  the  Turks.  In  consequence,  the  dis- 
appointment of  the  Bulgarians  was  in- 
tense. Far  from  resigning  themselves  to 
their  new  lot,  they  never  gave  up  the 
hope  of  regaining  what  had  once  been 
promised  to  them,  and  the  chief  historical 
importance  of  the  Bulgaria  of  San  Ste- 
fano has  been  that  it  created  for  a  nation 
an  ideal  they  have  pursued  unswervingly 
ever  since. 

Serbia  was  now  independent  and  en- 
larged, as  was  Montenegro,  who  had  ob- 
tained her  long-coveted  seaport,  but  both 
these  states  bitterly  resented  the  Austrian 
occupation  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina, 
which  were  inhabited  by  their  kinsmen, 


146  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

and  which  they  had  desired  for  them- 
selves. They  also  disliked  the  Austrian 
occupation  of  Novibazar,  which  separated 
them  from  one  another.  Greece  was 
much  dissatisfied  with  the  smallness  of  her 
acquisitions,  and  she  regarded  the  new 
Bulgaria  as  a  dangerous  rival  for  territory 
which  she  had  long  hoped  might  some 
day  be  hers.  Altogether,  the  outlook  for 
future  harmony  in  the  Balkans  was  not 
promising. 

Even  the  two  powers  that  had  fared 
best  could  not,  as  later  events  have 
proved,  look  back  on  their  success  with 
complete  satisfaction.  Great  Britain 
may  have  obtained  *  peace  with  honor,' 
though  not  every  one  thought  so,  but  she 
soon  learned  that  she  had  been  egregiously 
mistaken  in  her  estimate  of  the  future  re- 
lations between  the  Russians  and  the  Bul- 
garians, and  she  had  cause  to  regret  that 
she  had  opposed  the  creation  of  the  Great 
Bulgaria,  which  would  thereafter  have 
given  a  different  aspect  to  the  history  of 


ENGLAND  AND  TURKEY  147 

the  Balkan  Peninsula,  and  would  have 
saved  Europe  the  perplexities  and  horrors 
of  the  Macedonian  question.  By  the  Cy- 
prus Convention,  England  assumed  a 
guarantee  for  the  integrity  of  Asiatic 
Turkey.  This,  luckily  for  herself,  she  has 
never  been  called  upon  to  make  good,  but 
she  also  assumed  an  obligation  to  protect 
the  Armenians,  an  obligation  that  was  to 
weigh  heavily  on  her  in  after-times,  and 
that  she  has  found  herself  painfully  un- 
able to  fulfil.  With  the  Turks  her  rela- 
tions soon  underwent  a  radical  change. 
After  the  fall  of  the  Beaconsfield  ministry 
in  1880  she  ceased  to  be  what  she  had 
been  for  the  previous  half  century,  the 
protector  to  whom  they  looked  for  aid  in 
every  crisis.  At  the  head  of  the  new 
Liberal  government  was  Mr.  Gladstone, 
the  champion  of  oppressed  peoples,  the 
benefactor  of  Greece,  the  author  of  the 
famous  pamphlet  on  The  Bulgarian  Hor- 
rors. Henceforth  the  voice  of  England 
was   no   longer  that  of  a   friend.     The 


148  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

change  was  to  prove  lasting.  From  that 
day  to  this.  Great  Britain  and  the  Otto- 
man empire  have  rarely  been  on  cordial 
terms. 

Even  Austria-Hungary  was  by  no 
means  so  content  with  her  acquisitions  as 
might  have  been  expected.  Count  An- 
drassy  had  steered  his  course  with  skill 
and  had  brought  his  vessel  of  state  tri- 
umphantly into  port.  He  had  checked 
the  ambitions  of  Russia,  he  had  prevented 
the  creation  of  a  powerful  South  Slav 
kingdom,  he  had  kept  open  the  road  to 
Salonica,  and  he  had  secured  for  his  sov- 
ereign a  territory  that  might  be  regarded 
as  a  compensation  for  the  loss  of  Lom- 
bardy  and  Venetia.  Under  his  guidance 
Austria,  excluded  from  Italy  and  Ger- 
many, had  found  a  new  field  for  her  expan- 
sion, and  she  had  entered  into  this  heri- 
tage not  by  war  and  conquest,  but  in  re- 
sponse to  the  official  mandate  of  Europe, 
which  had  commissioned  her  to  take  over 
these  lands  from  the  Turks,  who  had 


AUSTRIA-HUNGARY  149 

shown  themselves  incapable  of  retaining 
them.  And  yet  there  were  shadows  to 
this  picture.  In  Austria,  and  still  more 
in  Hungary,  the  two  chief  nationalities, 
the  Germans  and  the  Magyars,  were  none 
too  well  pleased  at  the  strengthening  of 
the  Slav  element  in  the  Dual  Empire, 
which  sooner  or  later  must  result  from  the 
bringing  of  over  a  million  more  Slavs 
under  the  rule  of  Francis  Joseph.  At  the 
last  moment  Andrassy  had  decided  to  get 
the  right,  not  of  'annexation'  of  Bosnia 
and  Herzegovina,  but  only  of  'occupation 
and  administration.'  He  was  probably 
influenced  by  the  difficulty  as  to  the  dis- 
position of  the  two  provinces  between  the 
two  halves  of  the  monarchy  if  they  were 
formally  annexed,  and  also  by  his  anxiety 
to  obtain  the  acquiescence  of  the  Turks. 
If  he  had  asked  for  outright  annexation 
he  might  not  have  been  able  to  obtain 
the  signatures  of  their  plenipotentiaries 
at  Berlin,  and  without  them  his  action 
would   bear   an   appearance   of  violence 


I50  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

which  he  was  eager  to  avoid.  Even  as  it 
was  he  had  to  agree  to  a  secret  promise, 
which  we  may  feel  sure  he  never  intended 
to  keep,  that  the  occupation  should  be 
only  temporary.  Doubtless  he  thought 
that  he  was  getting  the  substance  and 
sacrificing  only  the  shadow,*  neverthe- 
less his  imperial  master  and  the  military 
party  at  home  seem  to  have  been  disap- 
pointed, and  his  resignation  a  few  months 
later  may  have  been  connected  with  this. 
He  was  never  restored  to  favor,  a  thing 
Bismarck  declared  to  be  incomprehen- 
sible in  a  country  possessing  so  few  states- 
men as  Austria.  The  uncertainty  as  to 
the  ultimate  status  of  Bosnia  and  Herze- 
govina was  destined  to  remain  one  of 
the  disturbing  elements  in  the  Balkans 
for  thirty  years.  When  annexation  was 
at  last  formally  decreed,  it  almost  led 
to  a  general  conflict. 


*  In  private  he  described  the  Austrian  occupation  of  Bosnia 
as  annexation  "very  badly  disguised."  H.  Drummond  Wolff, 
Rambling  Recollections,  ii,  p.  194. 


BOSNIA   AND  HERZEGOVINA  151 

Andrassy  had  hoped  and  beheved  that 
the  territories  he  had  won  for  his  master 
would  submit  peacefully  to  their  new  lot. 
Instead,  the  Mohammedan  population 
rose  in  savage  resistance,  which  was  over- 
come only  by  the  employment  of  large 
forces  and  after  sharp  fighting.  The 
Christians  accepted  the  change  more 
quietly,  for  it  brought  them  great  bene- 
fits, but  the  largest  element  among  them, 
the  Orthodox  Serbs,  never  renounced  their 
nationalistic  aspirations.  On  the  con- 
trary, as  time  went  on,  these  aspirations 
grew  constantly  stronger.  They  ren- 
dered good  relations  between  Austria  and 
Serbia  almost  impossible,  till  they  cul- 
minated, in  1914,  in  the  tragedy  of 
Seraievo,  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
European  war. 

Germany,  at  the  Congress  of  Berlin, 
had,  according  to  Bismarck's  well  known 
phrase,  played  the  part  of  'the  honest 
broker.'  She  had  smoothed  over  the  dif- 
ferences between  the  other  countries  and 


152  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

had  approved  of  the  division  of  the  spoil 
between  them,  while  asking  nothing  for 
herself.  And  yet,  disinterested  as  Bis- 
marck claimed  to  have  been,  and  dexter- 
ous as  his  management  certainly  was,  he 
had  scant  reason  to  look  back  on  the 
events  of  the  last  few  months  with  satis- 
faction. He  had,  it  is  true,  helped  to 
launch  Austria  on  a  career  of  expansion 
to  the  southeast  in  sharp  rivalry  with 
Russia,  thereby  insuring  that  the  two 
would  not  combine  against  him,  and 
securing  himself  against  any  return  on 
the  part  of  Austria  to  a  policy  of  inter- 
vention in  German  affairs.  This  was 
well  enough,  but  the  League  of  the  Three 
Emperors,  the  one  that  of  all  others  he 
preferred,  and  the  one  that  precluded 
most  completely  any  combination  of 
powers  dangerous  to  Germany,  was  now, 
if  still  nominally  in  existence,  a  mere 
sham.  What  was  more,  he  had  failed 
in  his  attempt  to  aid  Vienna  without 
alienating  St.  Petersburg;   and  though  he 


POLICY  OF  BISMARCK  153 

may  have  had  confidence  in  the  miUtary 
strength  of  Germany  as  compared  with 
that  of  her  eastern  neighbor,  never  in 
his  long  career  did  Bismarck  regard  the 
attitude  of  Russia  as  a  matter  of  small 
importance.  As  between  Austria  and 
Russia  he  had  deliberately  chosen  to 
support  the  former,*  but  without  swerv- 
ing from  this  policy  he  had  sought  to 
avoid  arousing  Russian  susceptibilities, 
except  from  delight  in  annoying  and 
humiliating  Gorchakov  or  in  occasional 
outbursts  of  temper.  Speaking  publicly, 
ten  years  later,  he  declared:  "My  con- 
duct at  the  congress  was  such  that  I 
thought,  after  it  was  over:  Well,  if  I 
had  not  got  long  ago  the  highest  Russian 
order  set  in  precious  stones,  I  ought  to 
get  it  now."  f  None  the  less,  his  effort 
to  retain  Russian  friendship  had  resulted 
in  failure.     To  the  Russians  his  boasts  of 

*  The  reasons  given  by  him  in  his  memoirs  may  be  accepted 
as  far  as  they  go. 
t  Reden,  xii,  p.  463. 


154  Ti^iE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

what  he  had  done  for  them  appeared 
a  mockery.  No  small  services  that  he 
might  have  rendered  them  could  obscure 
the  fact  that,  from  their  point  of  view, 
Germany  under  his  guidance  had  in  the 
hour  of  need  deserted  the  friend  to  whom 
she  owed  so  much.  And  as  the  false 
friend  arouses  more  bitterness  than  the 
open  enemy,  every  one  from  the  Tsar 
down  resented  the  so-called  neutrality  of 
Germany  as  keenly  as  the  open  hostility 
of  England  or  Austria. 

For  popular  opinion  Prince  Bismarck, 
as  a  rule,  cared  little,  especially  for  Rus- 
sian opinion.  He  strove  to  win  the  good 
will  of  the  emperor,  not  that  of  the  na- 
tion, and  he  abominated  the  Panslavists, 
who  repaid  him  in  kind,  but  now  the  Tsar 
and  his  advisers  were  as  angry  as  the  most 
ardent  Panslavist.  During  the  winter  of 
1878-79  the  newspapers  of  St.  Petersburg 
and  Moscow  indulged  in  violent  recrimi- 
nations with  those  of  Berlin,  even  men- 
tioning with  favor  the  idea  of  a  Franco- 


FEELING  OF  THE   TSAR  155 


Russian  alliance.  In  the  reorganization 
and  redistribution  of  the  Russian  armies 
that  followed  the  war  with  Turkey,  the 
troops  stationed  in  Poland  were  strength^ 
ened  to  an  extent  that  excited  alarm  in 
Germany,  where  this  action  was  regarded 
as  a  sign  of  ill  will.  On  their  side  the 
Russian  government,  and  especially  the 
emperor,  were  irritated  by  what  they  be- 
lieved to  be  the  unfriendly  attitude  of  the 
German  representatives  in  the  interna- 
tional commission  determining  the  bound- 
aries of  Bosnia. 

The  sincere  admiration  and  affection 
that  the  Tsar,  a  man  of  frank,  impulsive 
nature,  had  long  felt  for  his  aged  uncle, 
the  Kaiser,  and  the  many  years  of  close 
intimacy  between  the  two,  made  his  dis- 
appointment and  resentment  the  more 
keen.  Was  this  the  gratitude  to  which 
he  was  entitled .?  Had  not  Emperor 
William  himself  written  in  1871 :  "Prussia 
will  never  forget  that  she  owes  it  to  you 
that  the  war  did  not  assume  the  most  ex- 


156  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

treme  dimensions.  May  God  bless  you 
for  it."  *  At  last,  unable  to  restrain  his 
feelings  longer,  Alexander  II  poured  out 
his  grievances  to  the  German  ambassador 
at  St.  Petersburg  and  ended  with  a  warn- 
ing, and  a  week  later  wrote  to  his  im- 
perial uncle  a  letter  f  complaining  in  a 
tone  almost  of  menace  of  the  conduct  of 
Germany,  which  he  ascribed  chiefly  to 
Bismarck's  resentment  against  Gorcha- 
kov.J    There  was  more  truth  than  tact 

*  Politische  Correspondenz  Kaiser  Wilhelm's  I,  p.  302. 

t  He  wrote  at  the  same  time  a  similar  letter  to  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph,  if  we  may  trust  Bismarck's  statement  to  St. 
Vallier.     Chaudordy,  La  France  en  1889,  p.  261. 

J  "I  understand  perfectly  that  you  are  anxious  to  maintain 
your  good  relations  with  Austria,  but  I  do  not  understand 
why  it  is  to  the  interests  of  Germany  to  sacrifice  those  of 
Russia.  Is  it  worthy  of  a  real  statesman  to  put  into  the 
scale  a  personal  quarrel  when  it  is  a  question  of  the  interests 
of  two  great  states  born  to  live  on  good  terms  with  one 
another  and  when  one  of  them  rendered  the  other,  in  1870,  a 
service  which  according  to  your  own  words  you  said  you 
would  never  forget  ?  I  should  not  have  presumed  to  remind 
you  of  this,  but  the  situation  is  becoming  too  serious  for  me 
to  conceal  from  you  the  fears  that  are  harassing  me  of  con- 
sequences that  might  be  disastrous  to  our  two  countries.  May 
God  preserve  us  from  them  and  be  your  guide."  H.  Kohl, 
Wegweiser  durch  Bismarck's  Gedanken  und  Erinnerungen, 
p.  170. 


THE   TSAR'S  LETTER  157 


in  his  remarks,  and  the  letter  greatly 
incensed  Emperor  William.  Bismarck 
profited  by  the  opportunity.  He  had 
just  heard  of  the  forthcoming  resignation 
of  Andrassy,  which  had  filled  him  with 
alarm,  as  perhaps  meaning  the  triumph 
of  clerical  and  anti-Prussian  influences  at 
Vienna  and  a  change  in  Austrian  policy. 
Although  he  had  soon  been  reassured  on 
this  point,  he  deeply  regretted  the  re- 
tirement of  a  statesman  whose  aims  had 
accorded  so  well  with  his  own.  On 
August  13  he  had  expressed  by  telegraph 
a  desire  to  see  Count  Andrassy  again  at 
any  time  and  place  that  was  convenient 
to  him.  Andrassy  replied  on  the  15th 
(the  day  that  the  letter  of  the  Tsar  was 
written),  fixing  Gastein  as  the  meeting 
place. 

A  close  alliance  between  Germany  and 
Austria  was  an  idea  which  Bismarck  had 
entertained  before  and  even  informally 
suggested.  This  may  seem  strange  in  one 
who  had  risen  to  greatness  by  his  reso- 


158  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

lute  anti-Austrian  policy,  which  had  tri- 
umphed in  the  war  of  1866,  and  had  led 
to  the  aggrandizement  of  Prussia  and  to 
the  expulsion  of  Austria  from  the  German 
Confederation.  Yet,  much  as  he  had  dis- 
liked the  previous  hollow  friendship  be- 
tween Vienna  and  Berlin,  which  he  be- 
lieved to  be  entirely  to  the  advantage  of 
the  former,  and  convinced  as  he  was  that 
Prussia  could  only  fulfil  her  ambitions  by 
a  successful, war  with  Austria,  none  the 
less,  even  before  that  war  was  finished,  he 
had  begun  to  look  forward  to  better  rela- 
tions in  the  future.  The  obstinacy  with 
which  in  the  hour  of  victory  he  had 
stood  out  against  the  eager  wish  of  his 
master  and  of  the  Prussian  military 
leaders  for  an  acquisition  of  Austrian 
territory,  was  due  only  in  part  to  the 
immediate  dangers  that  he  perceived  in 
case  Prussia  should  show  herself  im- 
moderate in  her  demands.  It  was  also 
due  to  his  extraordinary  foresight  as  to 
the  advantages  of  not  alienating  Austria 


GERMANY,  AUSTRIA,   AND  RUSSIA  159 


permanently,  but  of  leaving  the  way- 
open  to  a  subsequent  reconciliation.  In 
the  League  of  the  Three  Emperors,  Bis- 
marck had  already  reaped  a  first  reward 
for  this  policy,  and  he  was  now  to  reap 
a  further  one  when  he  believed  the  mo- 
ment had  come  to  guarantee  Germany 
against  the  consequences  cf  Russian  re- 
sentment. 

The  friendship  between  Russia  and 
Prussia  was  of  old  standing.  For  over  a 
century,  since  the  alliance  concluded  be- 
tween Catherine  II  and  Frederick  the 
Great  in  1764,  the  two  countries,  although 
at  times  there  had  been  coolness  between 
them,  had  never  been  at  war  with  one 
another,  except,  nominally,  during  the 
Moscow  campaign  of  Napoleon  I.  Their 
soldiers  had  fought  side  by  side  at  the  bat- 
tle of  Leipsic  and  on  other  glorious  fields, 
they  had  entered  Paris  in  triumph  to- 
gether, and  Emperor  William  himself, 
then  a  boy,  had  taken  part  in  that  trium- 
phant entry.     Since  then  the  two  coun- 


i6o  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

tries  had  often  befriended  each  other  to 
the  advantage  of  both.  The  closely  re- 
lated courts  of  Berlin  and  St.  Petersburg 
had  been  on  intimate  terms,  and  the  sov- 
ereigns were  bound  together  by  sincere 
mutual  affection.  But  such  sentimental 
considerations  did  not  weigh  with  Bis- 
marck. Earlier  in  his  career  the  friend- 
ship of  Russia  had  brought  him  great  ben- 
efits for  which  he  had  had  to  pay  little  in 
return.  He  was  not  disposed  now  to  pay 
much  and  get  little.  If  Russia  had  been 
willing  to  give  him  a  free  hand  against 
France,  his  attitude  might  have  been  dif- 
ferent, but  as  he  later  wrote  in  his  mem- 
oirs: "That  for  Russian  policy  there  is 
a  limit  beyond  which  the  importance  of 
France  in  Europe  must  not  be  decreased 
is  explicable.  That  limit  was  reached,  as 
I  believe,  at  the  Peace  of  Frankfort — a 
fact  which  in  1870  and  1871  was  not  so 
completely  realized  at  St.  Petersburg  as 
five  years  later.  I  hardly  think  that  dur- 
ing our  war  the  Russian  cabinet  clearly 


GERMANY,  AUSTRIA,  AND  RUSSIA  i6i 

foresaw  that,  when  it  was  over,  Russia 
would  have  as  neighbor  so  strong  and 
consolidated  a  Germany."  *  This  was 
true,  and  whatever  may  have  been  Bis- 
marck's designs  in  1875,  the  famous  war 
scare  at  least  made  clear  that  Russia  was 
not  minded  to  permit  him  to  attack 
France. 

Another  consideration  also  weighed 
with  him.  He  says  later  in  his  memoirs: 
"In  point  of  material  force  I  held  a  union 
with  Russia  to  have  the  advantage,"  f 
and  history  has  shown  that  this  assump- 
tion was  correct.  On  the  other  hand, 
Germany  had  great  material  force  of  her 
own,  so  great  that  in  an  alliance  between 
her  and  Austria  there  could  be  little  doubt 
as  to  which  would  be  the  dominant  part- 
ner— as  again  later  events  have  proved. 
With  Russia  there  was  no  such  prospect. 
To  be  sure,  the  time  was  past  when  St. 
Petersburg  could   take  with   Berlin  the 

*  Gedanken  und  Erinnerungen,  ii,  p.  231. 
t  Ibid.,  ii,  p.  234. 


1 62  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

superior  tone  used  by  Emperor  Nicholas 
I  toward  his  brother-in-law,  King  Freder- 
ick William  IV.  But  even  so,  complete 
docility  to  German  suggestions  could 
hardly  be  expected  on  the  banks  of  the 
Neva.  Russia  was  too  mighty,  too  proud, 
and  too  ambitious  a  state  to  remain  long 
content  with  the  role  of  second  fiddle. 
She  would  wish  to  receive  at  least  as 
much  as  she  gave,  especially  as  she  be- 
lieved there  was  a  good  balance  due  her 
already,  and  she  would  not  be  likely  to 
alienate  for  long  her  own  liberty  of  ac- 
tion. There  was  some  ground  for  the 
fear  Bismarck  expressed  to  Shuvalov, 
"that  if  the  German  pohcy  confined  its 
possibilities  to  the  Russian  alliance,  and, 
in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  Russia, 
refused  all  other  states,  Germany  would 
with  regard  to  Russia  be  in  an  unequal 
position,  because  the  geographical  situa- 
tion and  the  autocratic  constitution  of 
Russia  make  it  easier  for  her  to  give  up 
the  alliance  than  it  would  be  for  us."  * 

*  Gedanken  und  Erinnerungen,  ii,  p.  225. 


RUSSIA   OR  AUSTRIA  ?  163 

This  does  not  mean  that  under  certain 
circumstances,  and  if  paid  his  price,  Bis- 
marck might  not  have  gone  back  to  the 
poHcy  of  a  close  alHance  with  Russia, 
even,  to  a  certain  extent,  at  Austrian  ex- 
pense, and  such  a  poUcy  is  probably  what 
would  have  best  pleased  his  sovereign. 
But  neither  Russia  nor  Germany  was 
ready  at  the  last  analysis  to  grant  the 
other  a  perfectly  free  hand  as  against 
France  and  Austria  respectively.  This 
explains  the  failure  of  the  offers  of 
Radowitz  in  1875  and  of  Werder  in  the 
following  year,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  refusal  of  Bismarck  to  the  Russian 
proposal  for  an  offensive  and  defensive 
alliance,  made  to  him  in  1877  *  and  re- 
newed and  urged  upon  him  a  year  later 
by  Shuvalov,  just  before  the  Congress 
of  Berlin. 

To  these  considerations  we  may  add  the 
deeper  one  of  the  common  nationality  and 
history  of  the  Germans  in  Germany  and 

*Tatishchev,  Alexander  II,  ii,  p.  487.    See  also  Gedanken 
und  ErinneTungen,  ii,  p.  220. 


1 64  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

of  those  in  Austria.  For  a  thousand  years 
they  had  been  in  the  same  empire,  and 
their  present  poHtical  severance  from  one 
another  dated  back  scarcely  more  than  a 
decade.  Such  factors  weighed  with  Bis- 
marck, and  he  mentions  them  among  the 
reasons  for  his  decision,  but  we  must  not 
exaggerate  their  importance.  Though  he 
was  a  German  to  the  core  and  the  chief 
maker  of  German  unity,  he  had  little  of 
the  spirit  of  intense  nationalism  so  char- 
acteristic of  the  next  generation;  he  had 
never  belonged  to  the  'Great  Germany' 
party,  and  without  a  qualm  he  had  cut 
off  ten  million  Austrian  Germans  from 
their  immemorial  connections,  just  as  he 
never  worried  over  the  fate  of  the  Ger- 
mans in  the  Russian  Baltic  provinces. 
His  positive  genius  was  far  removed  from 
the  dreams  of  the  modern  Pangermanist. 
He  neither  rhapsodized  over  the  merits 
of  Kultur  nor  looked  forward  to  an  inev- 
itable conflict  between  Slav  and  Teuton, 
though  he  regarded  Russian  Panslavism 


BISMARCK'S  MOTIVES  165 

as  a  menace.  In  short,  he  was  a  patriot, 
but  not  a  nationalist,  clear-sighted  and 
practical  rather  than  sentimental  or  im- 
aginative. He  had  already  shown  by  his 
conduct  throughout  the  whole  Eastern 
crisis  that  if  the  League  of  the  Three 
Emperors  should  break  down,  and  he 
were  forced  to  choose  between  Austria  and 
Russia,  it  was  Austria  he  would  support. 
Now,  angered  by  the  attitude  of  Russia 
since  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  and  fearing 
that  in  spite  of  assurances  to  the  contrary 
the  retirement  of  Andrassy  might  lead  to 
a  change  of  policy  at  Vienna,  he  deter- 
mined while  there  was  still  time  to  bind 
Germany  and  Austria  together  by  an  alli- 
ance which  should  put  an  end  to  the  dan- 
gers that  threatened  them  both.  Hav- 
ing, therefore,  commented  at  length  on 
the  letter  of  the  Tsar,  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  inflame  rather  than  soothe  the 
anger  of  his  sovereign,  and  having  sub- 
mitted a  draft  for  a  stiff  reply,  he  started 
for  Gastein,  eager  to  meet  his  Austrian 


1 66  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

friend   and   to  push   matters   to   a   con- 
clusion. 

Count  Andrassy,  on  his  part,  if  we  may 
trust  to  a  memorandum  that  he  wrote  in 
1888,  had  been  aiming  for  just  such  a 
result  ever  since  he  had  become  foreign 
minister.  It  did  not,  therefore,  take  long 
for  the  two  statesmen  to  reach  an  under- 
standing when  they  came  together  at 
( Gastein.  They  agreed  that  after  each 
had  obtained  the  approval  of  his  master, 
Bismarck  should  proceed  to  Vienna  to 
enter  into  formal  negotiations  for  an 
Austro-German  alliance.  The  idea  was 
immediately  approved  by  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph,  but  the  aged  German 
emperor  was  at  first  quite  unfavorable 
to  it.  Although  offended  at  the  tone  of 
his  nephew,  he  still  clung  to  the  hered- 
itary friendship  between  Berlin  and  St. 
Petersburg,  and  he  was  just  sending 
General  Manteuffel  with  a  special  mes- 
sage to  the  Tsar.  He  also  had  not  en- 
tirely got  over  his  old  distrust  of  Austria. 


ALEXANDROVO  167 


He  telegraphed,  accordingly,  to  Gastein, 
forbidding  Bismarck's  journey  to  Vienna, 
and  only  gave  his  consent  after  the  most 
vigorous  remonstrances  on  the  part  of 
the  chancellor,  who  declared  that  his 
own  position  and  further  continuation 
in  office  would  be  impossible  if  he  were 
to  be  disavowed  in  this  manner.  Em- 
peror William  yielded  with  reluctance, 
and  presently,  in  answer  to  an  invitation 
from  Tsar  Alexander,  decided  to  meet  him 
and  clear  up  the  situation.  Unwelcome 
as  such  a  step  was  to  Bismarck  at  this 
juncture,  he  was  unable  to  do  anything, 
except  submit  to  his  master  a  long  memo- 
randum on  the  relations  between  Ger- 
many, Russia,  and  Austria,  in  the  past, 
present,  and  future.  The  document,  how- 
ever, seems  to  have  had  little  effect.  On 
September  3,  at  the  Russian  frontier  town 
of  Alexandrovo,  uncle  and  nephew  greeted 
each  other  once  more.  All  the  clouds  be- 
tween them  soon  vanished.*     The  Tsar 

*  For  an  account  of  the  meeting,  see  Tatishchev,  Alexander 
II,  ii,  p.  550. 


1 68  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

expressed  his  profound  regret  if  anything 
he  had  written  had  offended  his  uncle, 
and  declared  that  his  feelings  and  pur- 
poses had  been  misunderstood  in  Ger- 
many. He  brought  forward  his  minister 
of  war,  General  Miliutin,  the  man  sup- 
posed to  be  the  leader  of  the  anti-German 
faction,  to  aver  that  there  was  no  truth 
in  the  charge,  and  that  the  recent  Rus- 
sian military  movements  were  not  in 
any  sense  hostile.  The  two  monarchs 
parted  completely  reconciled,  and  with 
Emperor  William  satisfied  that  his  chan- 
cellor's suspicions  of  Russia  were  without 
real  foundation.  He  therefore  rejected 
flatly  the  idea  of  an  Austro-German  al- 
liance directed  against  Russia,  declaring 
that  such  an  act  would  now  be  dis- 
honorable and  treacherous  on  his  part. 

This  brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  Bis- 
marck, from  Gastein,  where  he  was  kept 
by  the  state  of  his  health,  continued  to 
assail  his  master  with  arguments  and 
with  threats  of  resignation.     In  answer 


CROSS  CURRENTS  169 

the  emperor  talked  of  abdicating  rather 
than  stooping  to  a  dishonorable  act. 
Only  after  obstinate  resistance  did  he 
unwillingly  consent  to  negotiations  for 
a  defensive  alliance,  but  it  must  not  be 
one  that  was  specifically  directed  against 
Russia. 

On  September  21  Prince  Bismarck  ar- 
rived in  Vienna.  He  was  well  received. 
The  discussions  between  him  and  Count 
Andrassy  and  the  drawing  up  of  the 
treaty  lasted  but  three  days.  Andrassy 
declined  Bismarck's  suggestion  that  the 
pact  should  be  made  part  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  both  empires,  thus  bringing  them 
into  a  permanent  relation  with  one  an- 
other that  would  recall  in  a  measure  the 
Germanic  federation  dissolved  by  the  war 
of  1866.  He  also  refused  to  sign  any  gen- 
eral treaty  of  aUiance,  declaring  that  Aus- 
tria had  no  quarrel  with  France  and 
wished  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  her, 
partly  out  of  consideration  for  England. 
As  Germany  was  amply  able  to  hold  her 


170  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

own  against  France  without  assistance, 
just  as  Austria  was  against  Italy,  an  al- 
liance for  such  contingencies  was  not 
necessary  or  desirable.  The  only  real 
menace  was  from  Russia,  or  from  a  com- 
bination of  Russia  and  some  other  power, 
and  this  was  all  that  should  be  provided 
against.  On  this  point  we  may  suspect 
that  Bismarck  merely  made  a  show  of 
following  the  instructions  given  him.  If 
he  had  cared  at  bottom,  he  would  have 
displayed  more  vigor  and  obstinacy  than 
he  did  in  contesting  Andrassy's  argu- 
ments. As  it  was,  he  soon  yielded  to 
them,  and  in  a  memorandum  to  his  em- 
peror, on  September  24,  recommended 
the  ratification  of  the  agreement  that 
had  been  reached. 

This  led  to  another  acute  crisis.  Em- 
peror William  asserted  repeatedly  that 
the  proposed  treaty  would  be  an  act  of 
ill  faith  on  his  part,  after  the  assurances 
he  had  just  interchanged  with  the  Tsar. 
Again  he  talked  of  abdicating  rather  than 


EMPEROR  WILLIAM  AND  BISMARCK       171 

consenting  to  such  a  thing.  Why  was 
not  the  best  and  simplest  solution  to  ad- 
mit Russia  herself  to  the  pact,  and  thus 
renew  and  strengthen  the  League  of  the 
Three  Emperors  ?  On  the  other  hand, 
Bismarck  once  more  came  forward  with 
the  threat  of  his  own  resignation.  He 
called  to  his  assistance  the  chief  men  of 
the  empire.  He  assured  himself  of  the 
approval  of  the  king  of  Bavaria,  and  he 
called  on  Prince  Hohenlohe,  the  German 
ambassador  in  Paris,  to  add  his  argu- 
ments. Von  Moltke  brought  the  whole 
weight  of  his  military  authority  and  in- 
fluence to  bear  on  the  same  side.  The 
crown  prince  also  supported  it  with  en- 
thusiasm. The  imperial  ministers  were 
unanimous  in  its  favor,  and  announced 
their  intention  of  resigning  if  the  treaty 
were  not  ratified.  Thus  the  aged  emperor 
found  himself  alone.  Most  reluctantly  he 
yielded  to  the  pressure  put  upon  him. 
The  only  concession  that  he  was  able  to 
obtain  was  that  though  for  the  present 


172  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

the  terms  of  the  pact  were  to  remain 
secret,  he  might  in  case  of  need  inform 
the  Tsar  of  its  scope.  To  this  Andrassy 
consented,  and  on  October  7,  1879,  the 
Austro-German  aUiance  was  signed  by 
him  and  by  Prince  Reuss,  the  German 
ambassador  in  Vienna. 

The  news  of  what  had  been  done  soon 
transpired.  In  both  Germany  and  Aus- 
tria it  was  greeted  with  loud  applause. 
There  were  a  few  dissentients,  especially 
in  Austria  among  the  clericals  and  the 
Slavs,  but  in  the  main  both  countries  felt 
that  the  alliance  was  a  natural  one, 
founded  on  the  interests  of  both,  against 
a  common  danger.  To  the  former  parti- 
sans of  Great  Germany  it  seemed  a  par- 
tial realization  of  their  once  cherished 
dreams,  bringing  together  all  Germans,  if 
not  into  one  confederation,  at  least  into 
close  and,  they  hoped,  permanent  part- 
nership. It  threatened  no  one,  for  it  was 
purely  defensive  in  character,  but  by  its 
existence   and   power  it   formed   a   dam 


THE  AUSTRO-GERMAN  ALLIANCE  173 

against  the  progress  of  Panslavism,  while 
it  helped  to  keep  France  quiet  by  making 
her  feel  her  isolation. 

In  England,  still  under  the  Conserva- 
tive and  anti-Russian  ministry  of  Lord 
Beaconsfield,  the  news  was  well  received. 
Lord  Salisbury,  in  a  speech  at  Manchester 
on  October  17,  hailed  it  as  "good  tidings 
of  great  joy."  In  France,  as  was  to  be 
expected,  it  aroused  apprehension.  The 
French  feared  that  Bismarck  might  now 
attack  them  without  fear  of  the  restraint 
which  had  been  imposed  upon  him  in 
1875.  He  gave  no  indication,  however, 
of  any  such  design.  While  he  was  nego- 
tiating at  Vienna,  he  had  expressly  sought 
out  the  French  ambassador  there  and 
had  spoken  to  him  most  reassuringly  as 
to  German  intentions.  Indeed,  his  at- 
titude during  and  after  the  Congress 
of  Berlin  was  more  friendly  than  it  had 
been  for  years. 

There  remained  Russia.  Even  with- 
out knowing  the  exact  contents  of  the 


174  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


Austro-German  treaty,  the  Russians  real- 
ized that  the  alHance  was  directed  against 
them  and  resented  it  accordingly.  But 
the  Tsar  took  the  matter  quietly.  On 
November  4  Emperor  William  wrote  a 
letter  to  his  "dear  Nephew  and  Friend," 
enclosing  the  preamble  to  the  treaty  as 
a  memorandum  and  explaining  with  ob- 
vious difficulty  and  confusion  the  reasons 
for  his  action.  He  even  went  to  the 
length  of  declaring:  "I  like  to  say  to 
myself  that  you  will  judge  the  principles 
embodied  in  this  important  act  at  their 
true  value,  and  that  you  will  agree  with 
them  as  strengthening  the  League  of 
the  Three  Emperors,  which  since  the  year 
1873  has  rendered  Europe  such  signal 
services."  Alexander  II  replied  that  he 
was  glad  '*that  this  political  transaction 
contains  absolutely  nothing  contrary  to 
my  wishes,"  and  that  "I  like  to  see  in 
it  the  return  to  that  perfect  understand- 
ing between  the  three  emperors  which,  as 
you  remark  with  so  much  truth,  has  ren- 


ATTITUDE  OF  RUSSIA  175 

dered  the  greatest  services  to  Europe."* 
The  words  of  the  Tsar  may  have  been 
tinged  with  irony,  but  he  continued  on 
good  terms  with  his  uncle  until  his  own 
death  by  assassination  on  March  13,  1881. 
This  event  had  little  immediate  influ- 
ence on  the  international  situation.  The 
new  Tsar,  Alexander  III,  was  a  man  of 
limited  education  and  with  no  great  range 
of  ideas,  profoundly  honest,  slow,  con- 
servative, religious,  not  to  say  bigoted, 
with  a  high  sense  of  his  duties  and  of  his 
position.  He  had  come  to  the  throne 
under  the  most  tragic  circumstances,  and, 
after  a  short  m^oment  of  hesitation,  he 
resolutely  set  his  face  against  liberalism, 
and  reverted  to  the  traditions  of  undi- 
luted autocracy.  With  stern  determina- 
tion he  stamped  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment almost  out  of  existence  and  followed 
a  firm  reactionary  policy.  In  foreign  af- 
fairs he  was  nationalistic,  with  none  of 
the  cosmopolitanism  that  had  character- 

*  Kohl,  Wegzveiser,  pp.  178-182. 


176  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


ized  his  predecessors  for  the  last  century 
and  a  half.  But  little  as  he  loved  foreign 
nations,  he  was  a  sincere  lover  of  peace 
and  intent  on  preserving  it,  and  by  nature 
he  was  adverse  to  adventure  or  to  wanton 
enterprise.  He  established  friendly  rela- 
tions with  his  great-uncle  at  Berlin,  and 
he,  and  still  more  his  quiet,  moderate, 
and  cautious  foreign  minister,  M.  de 
Giers,  were  soon  on  an  amicable  footing 
with  Bismarck.  The  tension  with  Aus- 
tria also  relaxed,  as  was  shown  by  a  secret 
treaty  signed  in  1881,*  according  to 
which,  in  return  for  Austrian  consent  to 
a  union  of  Bulgaria  and  Eastern  Rumelia, 
"si  elle  se  faisait  par  la  force  des  choses," 
Russia  agreed  that  Austria  might,  when 
she  chose,  convert  her  occupation  of  Bos- 
nia and  Herzegovina  into  actual  annexa- 
tion. 
The  difficulty  Austria  had  experienced 

*  See  the  article  on  Kalnoky  by  Friedjung  in  the  Bio- 
graphisches  Jahrbuch,  March,  1909.  See  also  Denkwurdig- 
keiten  des  Fiirsten  Hohenlohe-SchillingsjuTst,  ii,  p.  311. 


AUSTRIA   AND  SERBIA  177 

in  pacifying  these  two  provinces  led  her 
to  postpone  for  nearly  a  year  longer  her 
occupation  of  Novibazar,  which  was 
carried  out,  this  time  without  resistance, 
in  September,  1879.  She  thus  kept  open 
her  passage  to  the  southward  and  in- 
serted herself  between  Serbia  and  Mon- 
tenegro. She  now  possessed  almost  irre- 
sistible means  of  pressure  upon  Serbia, 
an  inland  state  whose  commerce  with 
western  Europe  must  pass  through  her 
territories,  and  whose  capital,  Belgrade, 
could  be  reached  across  the  river  by 
Austrian  guns  and  could  be  threatened 
with  immediate  attack. 

Besides  this,  the  Serbians  had  been 
angered  by  the  fact  that  Russia  had 
assigned  to  Bulgaria,  at  the  Peace  of 
San  Stefano,  lands  they  regarded  as 
theirs  and  had  also  supported  Bulgarian 
claims  at  Berlin.*     Serbia  got  these  lands 


*  On  Serbia  at  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  see  the  article  by 
Dr.  Vladan  Georgevitch  in  the  Revue  d'Histoire  Diplomatique, 
1891,  pp.  483-552. 


178  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

in  the  end  *  with  the  aid  of  Austria,  who 
had  opposed  her  expansion  in  other  direc- 
tions and  to  whose  dictation  she  had  to 
submit  in  railway  and  commercial  affairs. 
Continuing  her  pressure,  Austria  next 
succeeded  in  winning  over  to  her  policy 
Prince  (later  King)  Milan,  a  man  of  intel- 
ligence, but  of  untrustworthy  character, 
who  felt  far  from  secure  on  his  throne.  In 
1 88 1  he  brought  back  from  Vienna  the 
draft  of  a  treaty  which  he  persuaded  his 
minister  of  foreign  affairs  to  sign.  It  was 
then  put  away  in  the  archives,  and  very 
few  even  of  the  prime  ministers  and  min- 
isters of  foreign  affairs  of  Serbia  knew  of 
its  existence  for  the  next  dozen  years,  by 
which  time  it  had  come  to  be  regarded 
as  inoperative. 

By  this  treaty  of  June  28,  i88i,t  in  or- 
der to  establish  a  "perfect  friendship" 
between  the  two  states,  Serbia  bound  her- 

*  The  territory  about  Pirot.  Bulgarian  claims  extended  as 
far  as  Nish. 

t  For  an  account  of  it,  see  the  article  by  Stojan  Protitch  in 
the  Fortnightly  Review  for  May,  1909. 


AUSTRIA   AND  SERBIA  179 

self  not  to  tolerate  any  intrigues  against 
Austria-Hungary,  who  gave  a  reciprocal 
assurance,  promising  also  to  support 
the  dynasty  and  to  assist  Serbia  and 
her  interests  with  other  European  cab- 
inets; Serbia  in  return  undertook  "not 
to  negotiate  with  or  conclude  political 
treaties  with  any  other  states  without 
previous  agreement  with  Austria-Hun- 
gary." The  two  powers  promised  each 
other  mutual  friendship  and  neutral- 
ity in  the  event  of  war  with  a  foreign 
state.  Even  if  this  treaty  did  not  mean 
any  great  accession  of  strength  to  Aus- 
tria, it  helped  to  keep  Serbia  in  the  posi- 
tion of  her  client  in  Balkan  affairs. 

But  strong  and  satisfactory  as  the  Aus- 
tro-German  alliance  was,  it  was  capa- 
ble of  being  improved  or  at  least  supple- 
mented by  the  accession  of  another 
power,  and  that  power,  after  earlier  hesi- 
tation and  reluctance,  was  now  eager  to 
be  admitted  into  partnership. 

The  young  kingdom  of  Italy  had  been 


i8o  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

completed  by  the  occupation  of  Rome  in 
September,  1870.  Unlike  Prussia,  Italy 
had  not  reached  greatness  by  brilliant 
victories  of  her  own;  her  success  had 
been  due  not  only  to  her  efforts,  but  also 
to  the  misfortunes  of  others,  which  she 
had  turned  to  good  account.  After  the 
achievement  of  her  unity,  she  still  feared 
an  Austrian  attempt  to  reverse  the  ver- 
dict of  1859  and  of  1866,  and  that  this 
time  she  would  not  have  a  French  or  a 
Prussian  ally.  She  feared  still  more  that 
some  power  might  take  up  the  cause  of 
the  Pope  and  demand  the  restoration  of 
his  temporal  authority,  and  she  believed 
that  the  greatest  danger  in  this  respect 
threatened  her  from  the  side  of  France. 

The  relations  between  France  and  Italy 
extend  over  a  period  of  more  than  two 
thousand  five  hundred  years:  that  is  to 
say,  to  the  beginning  of  the  known  his- 
tory of  each.  Even  before  the  founding 
of  Rome,  Celtic  tribes  from  Gaul  had 
penetrated  into  the  heart  of  the  peninsula 


FRANCE  AND  ITALY  i8i 

and  settled  there  as  conquerors.  Rome 
itself  was  captured  by  the  Gauls  in  390 
B.  c,  and  as  late  as  the  time  of  Caesar, 
though  Cisalpine  Gaul  had  long  been 
under  Roman  rule,  the  frontier  of  Italy 
proper  was  not  the  Alps  but  the  Apen- 
nines and  the  Rubicon.  On  the  other 
hand,  during  the  centuries  that  Gaul 
was  part  of  the  Roman  possessions,  it  be- 
came so  thoroughly  Latinized  that,  like 
Spain,  it  retained  its  Latin  character  in 
spite  of  a  period  of  barbarian  conquest 
and  domination.  Only  its  eastern  por- 
tion was  permanently  Germanized;  in  the 
rest  of  the  land  the  intruders  were  soon 
absorbed.  Therefore  in  this  present  age 
of  nationalistic  consciousness  Frenchmen 
and  Italians  regard  themselves  as  bound 
together  by  ties  of  blood,  of  identical  cul- 
tural origin,  and  of  common  civilization 
and  ideals.  Questionable  as  these  ties 
may  be  from  a  scientific  point  of  view,  the 
belief  in  them  and  the  sentimental  value 
attached  to  them  are  real.     'The  sister- 


i82'  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


hood  of  the  Latin  nations,'  to  use  a  favor- 
ite term,  represents  the  same  sort  of 
vague  nationalistic  ideals  as  Panslavism, 
Panteutonism,  and  other  movements  of 
the  kind. 

This  feeUng  of  sisterhood  has  not  kept 
the  Latin  nations  on  especially  good 
terms  with  one  another  in  the  past. 
Much  as  the  French  have  owed  not  only 
to  Roman  but  to  Renaissance  Italian  cul- 
ture, they  have  none  the  less  invaded 
Italy  again  and  again  for  frankly  selfish 
reasons.  Their  first  appearance  as  bene- 
factors, though  still  as  plunderers,  was 
in  the  days  of  the  French  Revolution, 
when  they  brought  in  temporarily  a  cer- 
tain measure  of  political  liberty,  long 
unknown  south  of  the  Alps.  In  the  nine- 
teenth century,  liberals  in  France,  as  else- 
where, sympathized  with  Italian  aspira- 
tions for  freedom  and  political  unity. 
Napoleon  III,  himself  an  Italian  almost 
as  much  as  a  Frenchman,  was  moved  by 
sentimental  considerations  as  well  as  by 


FRANCE  AND  ITALY  183 

calculation  when  he  took  up  the  Italian 
cause  and  declared  war  on  Austria  in 
1859.  His  two  victories  of  Magenta  and 
Solferino  soon  led  to  the  emancipation  of 
nearly  the  whole  peninsula  (if  not  quite 
in  the  way  he  had  intended),  and  though 
he  had  his  hesitations  and  misgivings,  and 
was  not  willing  to  abandon  the  Pope  al- 
together, he  remained  to  the  end  of  his 
reign  the  sincere  friend  of  Italy.  By  his 
attitude  in  1866  he  helped  her  to  obtain 
Venice. 

For  all  this  the  Italians  were  grateful  to 
him  and  to  France.  They  had,  however, 
grievances  which  loomed  large  in  their 
eyes.  The  Peace  of  Villafranca,  by  which 
Napoleon,  in  obedience  to  sound  military 
and  political  considerations,  halted  his 
successful  campaign  and  left  Venice  for 
some  years  longer  in  the  hands  of  Aus- 
tria, was  a  sad  disappointment  to  the 
Italians,  whose  hopes  had  been  inflamed 
by  the  emperor's  ill-advised  proclamation 
that  he  would  free  Italy  "from  the  Alps 


1 84  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

to  the  Adriatic."  It  is  true  that  he  still 
gave  them  his  support,  and  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  them  to  achieve  their 
unity  without  his  protection  against  Aus- 
trian interference,  a  protection  to  which 
they  owed  as  much  as  to  the  genius  of 
Cavour  or  to  the  enterprise  of  Garibaldi. 
But  when  their  success  went  much  fur- 
ther than  he  had  foreseen,  he  had  exacted, 
in  compensation  for  his  services  and  for 
the  sacrifices  of  France,  the  cession  of 
Nice  and  Savoy.  Nice  has  in  the  past 
been  at  times  connected  with  Italy,  at 
times  with  France,  and  geographically  be- 
longs with  either.  The  peasants  in  the 
country  about  speak  a  dialect  of  Proven- 
gal,  but  by  i860  the  town  of  Nice  had 
become  Italianized,  and  it  was  here  that 
Garibaldi  was  born.  The  duchy  of  Savoy 
is  situated  on  the  French  side  of  the 
Alps  and  has  never  been  Italian  in  lan- 
guage, but  it  was  the  home  of  the  dynasty 
that  had  now  been  raised  to  the  Italian 
throne,  and  as  such  was  dear  to  them. 


FRANCE  AND  ITALY  185 

The  enforced  cession  of  these  two  dis- 
tricts, although  not  objected  to  by  the 
inhabitants  themselves,  has  not  been  for- 
given by  the  Italians  to  this  day.  When- 
ever relations  have  been  strained  between 
Italy  and  France,  the  eyes  of  those  who 
dream  of  Italia  Irredenta — and  every 
Italian  patriot  has  dreamed  of  it  more  or 
less — have  turned  in  the  direction  of  Nice 
and  Savoy,  and  of  the  island  of  Corsica, 
which  once  belonged  to  the  republic  of 
Genoa  and  has  been  French  only  since 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Another  cause  of  Italian  discontent  was 
the  continued  occupation  of  Rome  by 
French  troops,  in  deference  to  the  wishes 
of  the  clerical  party  in  France.  When  the 
garrison  was  withdrawn  in  1867,  Gari- 
baldi's ill-advised  expedition  against  the 
city  led  to  its  prompt  return,  and  to  the 
painful  incident  of  the  hero's  defeat  at 
Mentana.  In  1870  Italy,  if  given  per- 
mission to  occupy  Rome,  was  ready  to 
join    with    France    against    Prussia,    her 


1 86  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

partner  of  four  years  earlier.  But  as 
Napoleon  refused  his  consent  until  too 
late,  the  Italians,  without  running  any 
risks,  profited  by  his  disasters,  and  after 
the  withdrawal  of  the  French  garrison 
seized  the  Eternal  City. 

Meanwhile  in  France  there  was  much 
division  of  opinion.  Many  were  enthu- 
siastic for  the  liberation  of  Italy  and 
proud  of  the  part  their  country  had  taken 
in  it,  but  the  powerful  clerical  party  con- 
demned the  policy  of  the  emperor  alto- 
gether and  supported  the  territorial  claims 
of  the  Pope.  There  were  Frenchmen,  too, 
who,  though  not  clerical  in  their  sympa- 
thies, yet  could  not  shut  their  eyes  to  the 
fact  that  there  were  disadvantages  in  the 
creation  on  the  southeastern  frontier  of 
France  of  a  new  great  power  and  future 
rival  in  the  Mediterranean,  whose  ambi- 
tions might  some  day  conflict  with  hers. 
Granted  that  the  aspirations  of  the 
Italians  toward  national  unity  were,  like 
those  of  the  Germans,  legitimate  in  them- 


FRANCE  AND  ITALY  187 

selves,  was  It,  after  all,  the  business  of 
France  to  further  them  from  sentimental 
reasons  when  their  success  must  diminish 
her  own  relative  position  among  Euro- 
pean states  ?* 

In  the  later  part  of  the  Franco-Ger- 
man war,  a  number  of  Italian  volunteers 
served  in  the  French  army  under  Gari- 
baldi, and  though  neither  they  nor  their 
leader  achieved  much  success,  the  senti- 
ment that  inspired  their  action  was  ap- 
preciated. But  after  the  Peace  of  Frank- 
fort the  relations  between  France  and 
Italy  became  worse.  The  Italians  had 
grown  weary  of  being  reminded  of  a 
debt  which  they  regarded  as  being  by 
this  time  paid  or  cancelled,  and  indeed 
many  of  them,  including  King  Victor 
Emmanuel,  felt  that  they  had  owed 
gratitude  to  Napoleon  III  rather  than 
to  the  people  he  had  governed.     They 

*  "Napoleon  III  said  to  me  in  Paris  that  he  planned  to 
make  a  powerful  nation  out  of  Italy.  I  replied,  'Your  Maj- 
esty, that  is  a  ward  that  may  become  stronger  than  his  guard- 
ian.' "     Poschinger,  Jlso  sprach  Bismarck,  iii,  p.  151. 


1 88  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

had  little  sympathy  for  the  French  repub- 
lic, whose  example  might  encourage  the 
republican  party  in  Italy,  though  they 
feared  a  Bourbon  restoration,  believing 
that  it  would  mean  a  French  intervention 
in  behalf  of  the  Pope.  This  fear  was 
strengthened  by  the  outspoken  advocacy 
of  the  papal  claims  by  many  French 
royalists,  including  the  Pretender,  the 
Comte  de  Chambord  himself,  and  also 
by  the  fact  that  until  October,  1874,  the 
French  government  unwisely  kept  a  man- 
of-war  stationed  at  Civita  Vecchia,  the 
port  of  Rome. 

The  Italians,  therefore,  began  to  look 
for  friends  in  other  quarters.  In  1873 
King  Victor  Emmanuel  visited  Vienna 
and  Berlin,  and  there  was  talk  of  the 
probable  adhesion  of  Italy  to  the  League 
of  the  Three  Emperors.  But  these  first 
advances  led  to  nothing.  The  three  em- 
pires looked  askance  at  Italy  and  felt  no 
particular  need  of  her  friendship.  Her 
alliance  with  Prussia  in  1866,  although  it 


ITALY  AND  GERMANY  189 

had  been  profitable  to  both  parties,  had 
led  to  singularly  little  good  feeling  be- 
tween them.  From  first  to  last  they  had 
mistrusted  one  another.  The  Prussians 
had  a  poor  opinion  of  Italian  military 
capacity,  and  the  Italians,  although, 
thanks  to  the  successes  of  their  ally, 
they  obtained  Venice,  were  humiliated 
by  the  course  of  the  war  and  chagrined 
at  the  treaty  of  peace.  Bismarck  seems 
to  have  entertained  scant  liking  or  re- 
spect for  them;*  from  Austria  they  could 
hardly  expect  cordiality,  and  Russia  was 
indifferent. 

In  1877,  aroused  by  rumors  of  the 
agreement  of  Reichstadt,  the  Italian  gov- 
ernment sent  Francesco  Crispi  on  a  mis- 
sion to  sound  the  German  chancellor  as 
to  the  possibility  of  an  alliance  between 
Italy  and  Germany  against  France  and 
Austria. t     But  Bismarck,  while  express- 

*  In  1880  he  remarked:  "They  are  like  carrion  crows  on 
the  battle-field,  that  let  others  provide  their  food."  Busch, 
Bismarck,  ii,  p.  233. 

t  See  Crispi's  account  of  the  mission  in  his  memoirs. 


igo  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


ing  a  willingness  to  make  a  defensive 
treaty  against  France,  frankly  declared 
that  he  was  on  excellent  terms  with  Aus- 
tria and  would  remain  so.  In  answer  to 
Crispi's  declaration  that  Italy  could  not 
permit  Austria  to  have  Bosnia  and  Her- 
zegovina without  compensation  for  her- 
self, he  suggested,  not  a  rectification  of 
her  immediate  frontier,  which  was  what 
Crispi  was  doubtless  hinting  at,  but  that 
she  should  appropriate  Turkish  territory 
in  Albania.  Nothing  came  of  this  sug- 
gestion, and  at  the  Congress  of  Berlin 
Italy  neither  gained  anything  herself  nor 
dared  oppose  the  gains  of  Austria.  This 
outcome  produced  disappointment  and 
discontent  in  the  peninsula,*  which  was 
not  much  allayed  by  the  statement  of  the 
ministry  that  *' Italy  had  returned  from 
the  congress  with  clean  hands";  others 
called  it  with  empty  hands.     France,  too, 

*  Crispi  declared  in  a  speech  at  Naples:  "We  were  humiliated 
at  Berlin  as  the  last  people  in  Europe;  we  returned  slapped 
and  despised."  Chiala,  Pagine  di  storia  contemporanea,  ii, 
p.  17. 


TUNIS  igi 


came  back  from  Berlin  'with  clean  hands/ 
but  she  had  something  in  her  pocket,* 
and  that  something  was  an  object  Italy 
coveted. 

The  Roman  province  of  Africa  has 
more  than  once  played  its  part  in  history. 
From  here  the  Punic  city  of  Carthage 
established  her  rule  over  the  shores  of 
the  western  Mediterranean  and  sent  her 
ships  In  the  Atlantic  as  far  as  Britain 
and  down  the  coasts  of  Africa.  After  her 
fall  there  rose  on  the  same  site  a  new 
Roman  Carthage,  long  the  second  city  in 
the  West.  Then  came  the  Vandal  and 
later  the  Arab  conquest.  Of  Carthage 
few  traces  remain,  but  some  miles  away 
the  city  of  Tunis  had  its  periods  of  glory 
as  the  capital  of  various  Mohammedan 
dynasties.  In  the  sixteenth  century  it 
was  fought  over  by  the  Spaniard  and  the 
Turk,  and  became  the  home  of  a  piratical 
state,  nominally  vassal  to  the  Ottoman 
empire.     When  the  age  of  piracy  came 

*  Words  of  Waddlngton  on  leaving  the  congress. 


192  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

to  an  end,  its  fortunes  declined,  and  by 
the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  regency  of  Tunis  seemed  almost 
in  a  state  of  dissolution.  The  rule  of  its 
sovereign,  the  Bey,  was  tyrannical  and 
corrupt;  the  treasury  was  empty;  and 
the  first  fatal  step  in  outside  interference, 
foreign  control  of  finance,  had  already 
been  taken.  But  the  natural  resources 
of  the  country  were  as  great  as  they  had 
been  in  its  brightest  days,  the  soil  was 
as  fertile,  the  climate  as  mild  as  ever. 
All  that  it  needed  to  bring  back  its  former 
prosperity  was  enlightened  government 
and  foreign  capital  and  enterprise. 

No  acquisition  overseas  could  be  more 
alluring  to  the  Italians  than  Tunis. 
Lying  at  their  very  door,  it  would  as- 
sure them  the  possession  of  the  southern 
as  well  as  the  northern  sides  of  the  nar- 
row passage  between  the  western  and 
the  eastern  halves  of  the  Mediterranean, 
that  Mediterranean  in  which  they  re- 
garded themselves   as  the  heirs  of  the 


ITALY  AND  TUNIS  193 

imperial  traditions  of  Rome.  The  natural 
conditions  of  the  country  were  suitable 
for  Italian  colonization,  and  its  small 
and  backward  population  left  plenty  of 
land  for  the  immigrants  whom  Italy's  high 
birth  rate  enabled  her  to  supply  in  any 
number  desired,  and  who  already  formed 
much  the  largest  foreign  colony  there. 
No  wonder,  then,  that  as  soon  as  the 
kingdom  of  Italy  was  constituted,*  and 
even  before,!  Italians  began  to  talk  of  the 
necessity  of  bringing  Carthage  once  more 
under  the  rule  of  Rome. 

But  if  Italy's  desire  for  Tunis  was  nat- 
ural and  legitimate,  that  of  France  was 
equally  so.  Half  a  century  had  now 
elapsed  since  the  French,  by  the  capture 
of  Algiers,  had  set  foot  in  North  Africa. 

*  Mazzini  wrote  in  1871:  "As  Morocco  turns  toward  the 
Iberian  Peninsula  and  Algeria  toward  France,  Tunis,  the  key- 
to  the  central  Mediterranean,  linked  in  formation  with  Sar- 
dinia and  Sicily  and  distant  but  some  twenty-five  leagues 
from  Sicily,  obviously  turns  toward  Italy.  .  .  .  To-day  the 
French  are  making  eyes  at  it  and  will  soon  possess  it,  if  wc 
do  not."    Scritti,  xvi,  pp.  153,  154. 

t  For  instance,  in  the  writings  of  Gioberti, 


194  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


In  the  course  of  time,  after  years  of  ardu- 
ous fighting  and  enormous  expense,  with 
many  hesitations  and  mistakes  but  with 
stubborn  persistence,  they  had  built  up 
a  colony  that  was  just  beginning  to  flour- 
ish. The  possession  of  Algeria  not  only 
strengthened  France  in  the  Mediterra- 
nean; it  also  furnished  her  with  compen- 
sation for  what  she  had  lost  in  Europe, 
as  well  as  for  the  colonies  of  which  she 
had  been  deprived  in  the  previous  cen- 
tury. Although  the  French  settlers  in 
Algeria  were  and  always  will  be  a  minority 
of  the  population,  they  can  give  it  their 
civilization  and  perhaps  in  time  their  lan- 
guage, making  it,  if  not  an  African 
France,  at  least  a  fresh  field  for  the  ex- 
pression of  French  character  and  genius, 
one  distant  less  than  a  day's  sail  from  the 
mother  country,  and  capable  of  being 
united  to  it  by  strong  and  permanent  ties. 
Algeria  itself,  however,  is  only  the  central 
portion  of  a  region  known  a  century  ago 
as  the  Barbary  states,  the  whole  of  which 


FRANCE  IN  NORTH  AFRICA  195 

belongs  naturally  in  the  same  hands,  for 
it  has  the  same  general  features  and  is 
inhabited  by  the  same  peoples.  Geo- 
graphically it  has  a  well  defined  unity  of 
its  own.  Its  political  divisions  have  been 
the  result  not  of  natural  formation  but  of 
historical  accident. 

As  soon  as  the  French  began  to  feel  at 
home  in  Algeria  they  inevitably  turned 
their  eyes  toward  their  neighbors  east 
and  west,  the  regency  of  Tunis  and  the 
empire  of  Morocco,  the  two  other  portions 
of  this  North  African  region.*  Both  were 
in  such  condition  that  they  bade  fair 
sooner  or  later  to  come  under  the  control 
of  some  European  power.  Napoleon  III, 
in  his  dreamy  idealism,  may  have  deemed 
that  France  should  content  herself  with 
Algeria  and  should  leave  Tunis  to  Italy 
and  Morocco  to  Spain.  Other  and  more 
practical  Frenchmen  felt  that  if  ever  the 


*  Tripoli,  though  counted  as  one  of  the  Barbary  states,  is 
separated  from  Tunis  by  the  desert,  which  here  reaches  the 
coast. 


196  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

time  should  come  when  these  natural 
prolongations  of  Algeria  must  fall  into 
foreign  hands,  those  hands  must  be 
French.  From  every  point  of  view — po- 
litical, commercial,  military — for  Algeria 
to  have  as  a  direct  neighbor  the  territory 
of  another  great  European  power  would 
be  disastrous,  no  matter  how  friendly 
that  power  might  be.  This  was  partic- 
ularly true  as  regarded  Tunis,  which  on 
the  map  goes  as  obviously  with  Algeria 
as  does  Portugal  with  Spain,  or  Sicily 
with  Italy.  In  consequence,  France 
strove,  on  the  whole  with  success,  to 
establish  a  preponderating  influence  in 
Tunis,  and  she  emphatically  refused  to 
recognize  the  claims  which  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey  still  put  forth  to  suzerainty 
there. 

At  the  court  of  the  Bey,  as  at  many 
other  African  and  Asiatic  posts,  the  chief 
opponent  to  the  French  consul  was 
usually  the  British  one.  After  i860 
the  Italian  consul  appeared  on  the  scene 


TUNIS  197 

as  a  new  and  active  force.  Here  as  else- 
where the  Franco-German  war  greatly 
diminished  French  prestige  and  influence; 
indeed,  during  its  course  an  Italian  ex- 
pedition against  Tunis  was  at  one  time 
threatened. 

When  in  1878  the  plan  of  the  Congress 
of  Berlin  was  broached,  It  was  at  first 
doubtful  whether  France  would  be  repre- 
sented. The  contrast  between  her  situa- 
tion then  and  the  one  she  had  held  at  the 
last  European  congress,  that  of  Paris  in 
1856  after  the  Crimean  war,  was  ex- 
tremely painful  to  Frenchmen.  To  at- 
tend, and  at  Berlin  of  all  places,  seemed  a 
humiliation,  but  not  to  attend  was  for 
France  to  abdicate  her  right  to  be  con- 
sulted as  a  great  power.  She  therefore 
accepted  the  invitation,  but  on  the  con- 
dition that  there  should  be  no  discussion 
of  Egypt  or  of  the  French  protectorate 
of  the  Holy  Places.  To  this  the  other 
powers  readily  assented:  a  detail  which 
did   not,   it   appears,   prevent   Bismarck 


1 98  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

from   suggesting   to   England   the   occu- 
pation of  Egypt.* 

Toward  the  end  of  the  congress,  when 
M.  Waddington,  the  French  foreign  min- 
ister and  first  plenipotentiary,  was  in- 
formed of  the  convention  handing  over 
Cyprus  to  England,  he  was  so  angered 
that  he  thought  of  leaving  at  once,  thus 
probably  disrupting  the  congress.  Lord 
Salisbury  sought  him  out  and  assured 
him  that  Great  Britain,  recognizing  that 
the  situation  of  France  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  as  the  possessor  of  Algeria 
gave  her  a  right  to  shape  the  destinies  of 
Tunis,  would  make  no  opposition  when 
the  time  came  for  her  to  assert  that  right. 
M.  Waddington  was  also  given  to  under- 
stand, though  just  how  has  never  been 
revealed,  that  Germany  would  have  no 

*  In  his  communication  announcing  the  Cyprus  Conven- 
tion, Lord  Salisbury  wrote  to  M.  Waddington,  on  July  6, 
1878:  "I  am  telling  Your  Excellency  no  secret  when  I  say 
that  we  have  been  very  earnestly  pressed,  by  advisers  of  no 
mean  authority,  to  occupy  Egypt — or  at  least  to  take  the 
borders  of  the  Suez  Canal."  Lord  Newton,  Lord  Lyons,  ii, 
p.  149. 


TUNIS  199 

objection  to  the  acquisition  of  Tunis  by 
France.* 

This  attitude  on  the  part  of  both  Eng- 
land and  Germany  was  somewhat  ex- 
traordinary. In  1830  England  was  so 
bitterly  opposed  to  the  French  expedition 
to  Algiers  that  she  almost  went  to  war 
to  prevent  it,  and  for  many  years  after 
she  viewed  the  presence  of  the  French  in 
North  Africa  with  intense  dislike.  For 
her  now,  without  solicitation,  to  offer 
Tunis  to  France  was  a  startling  reversal 
of  policy.  We  may  surmise  that  it  was 
due  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  Tunis  seemed 
to  be  destined  to  fall  soon  into  the  hands 
of  some  European  power,  and  that  Eng- 
land, who  just  then  happened  to  be  on 
quite  cordial  terms  with  France,  and 
since  1870  no  longer  feared  her  as  of 
old,  was  willing  to  grant  her  this  com- 
pensation for  the  strengthening  of  the 
English   position   in   the   Mediterranean 

*  See  G.  Hanotaux,  Histoire  de  la  France  coniemporaine,  iv, 
p.  388,  n. 


200  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

farther  to  the  eastward.  It  is  true  that 
England  was  Hkewise  on  excellent  terms 
with  Italy,  but  if  Italy  should  get  pos- 
session of  Tunis,  she  would  hold  both 
sides  of  the  Mediterranean  at  its  nar- 
rowest part,  and  might  some  day  control 
or  at  least  menace  the  security  of  a 
passageway  which  was  of  more  impor- 
tance to  Great  Britain  than  the  Suez 
Canal  itself.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  British  interests,  it  was  better  that 
the  two  sides  should  not  be  in  the  hands 
of  the  same  power,  even  if  that  power 
were  Italy. 

The  attitude  of  Prince  Bismarck  was 
determined  by  a  different  set  of  consid- 
erations, which  again  we  can  only  surmise, 
as  we  lack  direct  evidence  on  the  subject. 
In  1873  Count  Arnim,  the  German  am- 
bassador to  Paris,  said  abruptly  to  the 
Due  Decazes:  "I  forbid  you  to  take 
Tunis."  *    There   was    no   good    reason 

*  Denkwiirdigkeiten  des  Fursten  Hohenlohe-Schillingsjurst,  ii, 
p.  199. 


TUNIS  20I 

that  we  know  of  for  the  threat  at  that 
time.  Arnim  may  have  gone  beyond  his 
instructions,  as  he  did  more  than  once, 
or  his  menace  may  have  been  part  of  the 
policy  of  bullying  which  Bismarck  then 
followed  in  much  of  his  dealings  with 
France.  He  cared  little  for  the  affairs  of 
the  Mediterranean,  and  he  had  no  senti- 
mental predilections  as  between  France 
and  Italy;  but  it  was  clear  to  him  that  if 
either  of  the  two  obtained  the  supremacy 
in  Tunis,  there  would  be  an  estrangement 
between  them,  and  that  this  would 
accrue  to  the  advantage  of  Germany.* 
If  Italy  had  been  willing  from  the  first 
to  court  his  favor  and  pay  his  price,  he 
might  perhaps  have  been  willing  to  sup- 
port her  claims.    Indirect  overtures  were 

*  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  one  of  the  best  informed  students  of 
foreign  politics  in  his  day,  and  under-secretary  for  foreign 
affairs  in  the  Gladstone  cabinet  of  1880,  later  wrote:  "It  at 
least  seems  plain  .  .  .  that  a  great  deal  of  offering  of  other 
people's  property  took  place,  and  that  some  of  those  offers 
were  suggested  by  Prince  Bismarck.  In  one  case,  at  least, 
the  same  thing  was  offered  to  two  parties,  which  is  an  in- 
genious method  of  inducing  complications  which  may  lead  to 
war." — Present  Position  of  European  Politics,  pp.  27,  28. 


202  TEE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 


made  to  her  by  Austria  and  Germany 
at  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  but  were  re- 
jected   by    Count    Corti,    who   believed 
that  they  were  only  intended  to  embroil 
his  country  with  France,  and  who  had 
been    enjoined    by    his    government  to 
adopt    an    attitude   of   reserve.*     It    is 
worthy   of  note   that   not   long   before, 
when  Crispi  was  seeking  for  a  German 
alliance,  Bismarck  had  suggested  to  him 
the  taking  of  Turkish  territories  on  the 
Adriatic,  but  had  made  no  mention  of 
Tunis.     He  may  have  believed  that  Italy, 
even   if  assured   of  support,   would   not 
summon  up  the  resolution  to  follow  his 
advice  at  the  cost  of  French  enmity.     He 
may  also  have  believed  that,  if  he  could 
launch  France  into  a  career  of  colonial 
expansion,  he  would  not  only  turn  her 
thoughts  from  Alsace-Lorraine  and  a  war 
of  revenge,  but  also  weaken  her  by  divert- 
ing her  resources  from  her  tasks  in  Eu- 

*J.  Grabinski,  M.  Depretis,  pp.  255-257-  See  also  the 
appendix  by  Hans  F.  Helmolt  in  Arthur  Singer's  Geschichte 
des  Dreibundes,  p.  253. 


TUNIS  203 

rope.  Be  that  as  it  may,  he  let  M.  Wad- 
dington  know  that  he  would  not  stand  in 
France's  way  in  Tunisian  affairs,  and  in 
the  years  that  followed  he  maintained  a 
consistently  favorable  attitude.* 

The  temptation  thus  offered  to  France 
was  considerable,  and  possibly  her  states- 
men were  mistaken  in  not  yielding  to  it 
at  once.  But  French  public  opinion  was 
hardly  ready  yet;  the  war  of  1870  was 
still  too  recent,  the  need  of  rest  and  re- 
cuperation still  too  pressing.  There  was 
suspicion  of  Italian  designs  and  intrigues, 
but  there  was  little  inclination  to  take  any 
adventurous  step  in  order  to  anticipate 
them.  Besides,  anything  Bismarck  ap- 
proved of  was  feared  as  perhaps  conceal- 
ing a  trap.  The  government  at  Paris, 
therefore,  decided  against  immediate  ac- 
tion, but  Waddington,  after  his  return, 
took  care  to  put  on  record,  in  a  more 
precise   and   perhaps   exaggerated   form, 

*  There  are  many  indications  of  this  in  Hohenlohe,  Busch, 
and  elsewhere.  Bismarck  was  probably  also  pleased  by  the 
reserve  France  displayed  toward  certain  advances  on  the  part 
of  Russia. 


204  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

his  conversation  with  Lord  SaHsbury,  and 
then  to  submit  the  paper  at  London  and 
thereby  obtain  a  formal  acknowledgment 
that  in  substance  at  least  his  statement 
was  correct. 

In  Italy  the  results  of  the  Congress  of 
Berlin  were  received  with  dissatisfaction. 
Russia,  Austria,  England,  and  the  Balkan 
states  had  all  obtained  something,  and 
there  were  rumors  of  a  concession  to 
France,  whereas  Italy  had  come  out 
empty-handed — and  she  had  got  rather 
into  the  habit  of  expecting  to  profit  from 
each  international  crisis.  Public  opinion 
in  the  peninsula  was  discontented  and 
restless.  There  was  a  renewal  of  Irredent- 
ist agitation,  which  put  a  strain  upon  the 
relations  between  Italy  and  Austria  and 
led  to  a  threatening  concentration  of 
Austrian  troops  on  the  frontier.  In 
Tunis,  just  as  the  English  consul,  Mr. 
Woods,  for  twenty  years  the  tireless 
opponent  of  French  influence,  was  re- 
tired, a  new  and  active  Italian  one,  Sr. 


TUNIS  20S 

Maccio,  appeared  on  the  scene  in  a  ship- 
of-war  and  was  installed  with  military 
pomp.  He  immediately  plunged  into  a 
struggle  with  his  equally  active  French 
rival,  M.  Roustan,  and  for  a  couple  of 
years  the  duel  between  them  continued, 
the  Bey  hearkening  sometimes  to  the  one 
and  sometimes  to  the  other,*  while  the 
country  fell  into  ever  greater  confusion. 
In  France  and  Italy  the  public  followed 
the  course  of  these  events  with  increas- 
ing attention,  and  violent  articles  in  the 
press  heightened  the  irritation  on  both 
sides. 

In  all  this  the  Italians  were  following  a 
dangerous  policy.  As  the  weaker  nation 
of  the  two,  it  was  for  their  interest  to 
bide  their  time  and  maintain  the  status 
quo,  not  to  push  matters  to  an  issue.  In- 
stead, they  angered  and  alarmed  the 
French  by  their  noisy  activity,  until  the 

*  Roustan,  in  obedience  to  orders  from  Paris,  was  trj'ing 
to  persuade  the  Bey  into  signing  a  treaty  that  would  make 
him  a  protege  of  France.  See  C.  de  Freycinet,  Souvenirs: 
187S-1893,  p.  168. 


2o6  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

government  in  Paris,  secure  in  its  greater 
strength  and  in  its  knowledge  that  Italy 
would  get  no  outside  assistance,  deter- 
mined to  settle  the  matter  once  and 
for  all.  Taking  as  its  pretext  the  viola- 
tion of  Algerian  territory  by  an  unruly 
Tunisian  tribe  called  the  Kroumirs,  it 
despatched  a  punitive  military  expedi- 
tion of  30,000  men.  On  April  24,  1881, 
the  French  armies  crossed  the  Tunisian 
frontier,  and  without  opposition  pushed 
on  to  the  capital.  On  May  12,  in  the 
palace  of  the  Bardo,*  the  Bey  was  forced 
to  sign  a  treaty,  which,  while  preserving 
for  him  the  semblance  of  sovereignty  over 
his  subjects,  deprived  him  of  all  real  au- 
thority, and  turned  Tunis  into  a  French 
protectorate. 

In  preparing  and  carrying  out  this  ex- 
pedition, the  ministry  of  Jules  Ferry,  then 
in  power  in  Paris,  had  shown  itself  calm 
and  resolute.  It  had  not,  however,  been 
frank  in  its  explanations  to  the  chamber 

*  Or  Kasr-el-Said. 


TUNIS  207 

of  deputies,  nor  scrupulous  as  to  truth 
in  its  preliminary  assurances  to  Italy.  It 
also  made  the  mistake  of  withdrawing  a 
large  part  of  the  army  of  occupation  too 
soon,  and  thus  giving  an  opportunity  for 
an  insurrection,  which  broke  out  and  ne- 
cessitated the  sending  of  fresh  forces  and 
some  little  fighting  before  it  was  sup- 
pressed. Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  their 
mistakes,  Jules  Ferry  and  his  colleagues 
deserved  well  of  their  country.  They 
gained  for  France  a  territory  which  has 
greatly  strengthened  her  position  in  North 
Africa,  and  is  without  question  one  of 
the  most  valuable  of  all  her  possessions. 
Its  progress  has  been  steady  and  satis- 
factory; it  has  been  admirably  governed 
from  the  first,  and  it  presents  perhaps 
the  most  successful  example  of  French 
colonial  administration.  But  it  cost 
France  the  enmity  of  Italy  for  twenty 
years,  and  the  entrance  of  Italy  into  an 
alliance  against  her  which  lasted  for  a 
generation. 


2o8  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

The  expedition  against  Tunis  and  the 
treaty  of  the  Bardo  aroused  the  ItaUans 
to  frantic  protest.  Turn  where  they 
would,  they  could  find  no  ally — except, 
perhaps,  the  Turks,  who  wished  to  assert 
the  Sultan's  suzerainty  by  despatching 
ships  to  the  scene  of  action,  but  were 
stopped  by  the  categorical  declaration  of 
the  French  that  a  Turkish  fleet  would  be 
treated  as  an  enemy.  The  great  powers 
remained  deaf  to  Italian  appeals.  In 
England  public  opinion  was  somewhat 
excited,  but  the  hands  of  the  Liberal  gov- 
ernment were  tied  by  the  benevolent  as- 
surances of  its  Conservative  predecessor. 
Germany  and  Austria  remained  ostenta- 
tiously indifl^erent;  Russia  was  more  in- 
different still.  There  was  no  help  for  the 
Italians.  France  was  not  to  be  stopped 
except  by  actual  force,  and  they  were  too 
weak  unaided  to  risk  the  arbitrament  of 
the  sword. 

Throughout  the  peninsula  the  resent- 
ment was  bitter.     The  Cairoli  ministry, 


RESENTMENT  IN  ITALY  209 

which  had  been  in  power,  fell  after  the 
treaty  of  the  Bardo,  a  victim  to  pubHc 
indignation.  Italy  regarded  herself  as  in- 
jured and  humiliated,  and  she  chafed  at 
her  isolation  and  weakness.  She  believed 
that  France  had  cruelly  wronged  her,  and 
her  ill-feeling  was  heightened  by  a  riot, 
accompanied  by  loss  of  life,  between 
Italians  and  Frenchmen  at  Marseilles. 
She  had  relied  in  vain  on  assistance  from 
England.  When  she  turned  to  Germany 
and  made  fresh  approaches  for  an  alli- 
ance, she  was  met  with  the  frank  answer 
that  the  way  to  Berlin  lay  through 
Vienna. 

To  Vienna  the  Italians  went  accord- 
ingly. As  a  first  step.  King  Humbert 
himself  made  a  visit  there  at  the  end  of 
October,  1881,  despite  the  fact  that  Em- 
peror Francis  Joseph,  on  account  of  his 
relations  with  the  papacy,  had  never 
been  willing  to  return  in  Rome  the  visit 
King  Victor  Emmanuel  had  paid  him  at 
his  capital  in  1873.     King  Humbert  was 


2IO  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

received  with  friendly  courtesy,  but  polit- 
ical discussion  was  avoided.  In  Decem- 
ber the  Italian  foreign  office  instructed 
its  ambassadors  in  Berlin  and  Vienna  to 
begin  negotiations  for  a  definite  treaty. 
At  both  places  their  overtures  were  re- 
ceived with  a  calmness  that  was  dis- 
couraging. The  truth  was  that  though 
the  members  of  the  Austro-German  alli- 
ance perceived  the  advantages  of  admit- 
ting a  new  partner  to  their  society,  they 
neither  trusted  nor  greatly  respected  their 
future  friend,  and  they  felt  that  they  were 
in  a  position  to  wait  for  advances  and  to 
make  their  own  terms.  Prince  Bismarck 
graciously  admitted  that  he  was  "satis- 
fied" with  the  attitude  of  Italy,*  and  in- 
timated that  though  he  did  not  think  the 
time  had  yet  come  for  an  alliance  between 
her  and  Germany,  he  should  be  glad  to 
see  her  reach  an  agreement  with  Austria. 
Cheered  by  this  approval,  the  government 
at  Rome  continued  its  negotiations  with 

*  Chiala,  iii,  p.  282. 


ITALY  AND  AUSTRIA  211 

Vienna,  which,  however,  progressed  but 
slowly,  as  the  views  of  the  two  parties  dif- 
fered in  various  respects.  Several  notes 
had  to  be  interchanged,  and  Bismarck 
presently  joined  in  and  shared  the  dis- 
cussion. 

Italy  asked  for  two  things:  first,  a 
guarantee  of  the  integrity  of  her  territory, 
which  should  put  an  end  to  all  danger  of 
foreign  intervention  in  behalf  of  the 
papacy;  and,  second,  support  for  her  po- 
sition and  ambitions  in  the  Mediterra- 
nean. The  first  demand  meant  for  Em- 
peror Francis  Joseph  and  for  Catholic 
Austria  a  sacrifice  of  sentiment.  It  was 
a  painful  thing  for  them  to  consecrate  the 
possession  of  Rome  by  the  upstart  house 
of  Savoy.  At  last  they  consented  to  this, 
chiefly  because  the  provision  for  a  terri- 
torial guarantee,  being  mutual,  bound  the 
Italian  government  to  set  its  face  in  fu- 
ture against  the  cry  of  Italia  Irredenta. 
Germany,  on  her  part,  cared  nothing  for 
the  territorial  claims  of  the   Pope,  and 


212  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

had  naturally  no  objections  to  a  provi- 
sion that  offered  her  one  more  security 
for  her  possession  of  Alsace-Lorraine. 

The  second  Italian  demand  was  refused 
by  both  Berlin  and  Vienna.  Neither 
had  any  interest  in  Italian  ambitions  in 
the  Mediterranean  or  inclination  to  put 
themselves  out  to  serve  them.  The 
French  occupation  of  Tunis  did  not  dis- 
turb them,  and  Austria  at  least  was 
hostile  to  any  extension  of  Italian  influ- 
ence in  the  Adriatic.  All  that  Italy  could 
get  was  a  vague  general  promise  that  the 
allies  would  support  each  other  within  the 
limits  of  their  own  interests;  and  it  was 
provided,  to  reassure  Austria,  that  the 
principle  of  the  status  quo  should  be 
maintained  in  the  Balkans.  The  casus 
foederis  for  military  support  was  only  to 
become  operative  when  one  of  the  allies 
was  attacked  by  two  foreign  powers. 
The  duration  of  the  treaty  was  set  at  five 
years,  and  it  was  to  be  kept  secret. 

During  the  course  of  the  discussions 


CONCLUSION  OF  THE  ALLIANCE  213 


Bismarck  had  decided  to  conclude  an 
identical  treaty  between  Germany  and 
Italy,  leaving  out  only  the  clause  in  re- 
gard to  the  Balkans,  which  was  of  no  in- 
terest to  him.  On  May  22,  1882,  the  two 
documents  which  together  constituted 
the  Triple  Alliance  were  signed  in  Vienna, 
the  one  by  Count  Kalnoky,  foreign  min- 
ister for  the  Dual  Empire,  and  by  the 
Italian  ambassador,  the  other  by  the 
German  and  Italian  ambassadors.  Sev- 
eral months  elapsed  before  the  rumors 
as  to  the  existence  of  the  agreement  were 
fully  confirmed  and  it  was  officially  ad- 
mitted to  the  world.* 

The  formation  of  the  Triple  Alliance 
was  another,  triumph  for  Bismarck.  He 
paid  almost  nothing  for  it,  as  he  refused 
to  interest  himself  in  Italy's  Mediterra- 


*  For  these  negotiations,  see  Chiala,  iii,  and  Fraknoi,  "Zur 
Entstehungsgeschichte  des  Dreibundsvertrags,"  in  the 
Deutsche  Revue,  December,  1915.  For  a  sharp  criticism  of 
the  ambiguities  in  the  text  as  at  present  known,  see  Fraknoi, 
"Kritik  des  Dreibundsvertrags,"  Deutsche  Revue,  January, 
1916. 


214  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

nean  afifairs,  and  the  guarantee  he  gave 
of  the  integrity  of  her  territory  imposed 
no  burden  upon  Germany.  What  he  ob- 
tained was  an  important  addition  to  the 
forces  of  the  Austro-German  alliance  in 
case  of  a  conflict  with  France  and  Russia. 
To  be  sure,  his  opinion  of  the  Italian  army 
was  not  high,  but  that  it  should  menace 
the  French  and  not  the  Austrian  frontier 
in  case  of  hostilities  counted  for  a  great 
deal.*  The  Italians  had  also  a  navy  that 
was  reckoned  as  the  third  in  Europe,  and 
could  be  of  service  to  Germany,  whose 
fleet  was  still  inferior  to  that  of  France. 
Austria,  too,  in  return  for  a  considerable 
profit  sacrificed  but  little,  for  she  had 
definitely  abandoned  the  idea  of  regaining 
her  lost  Italian  territories,  though  she  was 
determined  to  retain  those  she  still  pos- 


*  "That  is  what  Prince  Bismarck  meant  when  he  once 
remarked  that  it  was  sufficient  for  him  that  an  Italian  cor- 
poral with  the  Italian  flag  and  a  drummer  beside  him  should 
array  themselves  against  the  West,  i.  e.,  France,  and  not 
against  the  East,  i.  e.,  Austria."  Biilow,  Imperial  Germany, 
p.  60.     See  also  Poschinger,  Also  sprach  Bismarck,  \i\  p.  iji. 


ADVANTAGES  OF  THE  ALLIANCE  215 

sessed.  The  Triple  Alliance  relieved  her 
from  anxiety  on  that  score  and  assured 
her  against  the  possibility,  which  she  had 
sometimes  feared,  of  a  league  between 
Russia  and  Italy. 

For  Italy  the  advantage  of  the  compact 
was  more  problematical,  even  though  it 
was  she  who  had  solicited  it,  and  though 
it  was  generally  approved  throughout  the 
peninsula.  In  its  favor  could  be  urged 
that  it  put  an  end  to  the  isolation  that 
had  weighed  upon  her,  and  that  it  made 
her  feel  she  was  being  treated  as  a  really 
great  power.  It  avenged  her  for  the  hu- 
miliation that  had  been  inflicted  upon 
her  by  France,  and  it  assured  her  against 
French  attack  in  the  future.  It  also 
secured  her  against  Austria,  and  here  we 
have  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  situa- 
tion. So  deep-seated,  in  spite  of  what 
was  loudly  said  to  the  contrary,  were  the 
causes  of  hostility  between  Austria  and 
Italy,  that  many  Italians  believed  that 
the  only  way  for  the  two  countries  to 


2i6  THE   TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

remain  at  peace  with  one  another  was 
by  becoming  allies.  Otherwise  they  must 
be  foes.  Finally,  the  friendship  of  Ger- 
many and  Austria  meant  for  Italy  at  least 
their  benevolent  neutrality  if  she  should 
launch  into  colonial  enterprises,  and  per- 
haps their  support,  if  France  were  to  in- 
terfere with  her. 

But  critics  of  the  alliance  then,  and  still 
more  later,  asserted  that  most  of  these 
advantages  were  imaginary,  since  they 
were  an  insurance  against  perils  that  did 
not  exist.  Granting  that  France  had 
made  use  of  her  superior  strength  to  seize 
an  object  that  had  been  coveted  with 
good  reason  by  both  countries,  there  was 
no  cause  for  believing  that  she  meditated 
further  aggression.*  The  French  repub- 
lic was  becoming  increasingly  radical  and 
anti-clerical,  as  was  proved  by  its  just 
having  passed  a  set  of  school  laws  that 
had  excited  intense  anger  among  good 

*  The  Italian  fears  of  French  designs  against  Tripoli  never 
had  any  justification. 


ITALY  AND   THE  ALLIANCE  217 

Catholics.  To  imagine  that  it  or  any 
statesman  serving  it  would  undertake  a 
crusade  to  restore  the  temporal  authority 
of  the  Pope  was  preposterous.  If  Italy 
was  isolated,  so  were  Great  Britain  and 
Spain  and  many  other  powers,  and  they 
found  themselves  none  the  worse  for  it. 
If  her  policy  was  wise  and  she  paid  proper 
attention  to  her  army  and  navy,  she  was 
strong  enough  not  only  to  defend  herself 
against  any  likely  attack  but  also  to  make 
her  aid  well  worth  courting  by  other 
powers.  Instead,  by  joining  the  Triple 
Alliance  she  had  tied  her  hands  in  the 
choice  of  her  friendships,  sacrificing  that 
of  France  for  many  years  to  come.  It 
was  useless  to  declare  that  the  Triple 
Alliance  was  purely  defensive,  a  league 
of  peace  to  which  none  could  properly 
object.  No  rhetoric  could  alter  the  fact 
that  while  France  had  shed  her  blood  for 
the  liberation  of  Italy,  now  Italy,  in  so 
far  as  she  was  able,  had  guaranteed  to 
Germany  the   possession  of  Alsace-Lor- 


2i8  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

raine.  There  was  nothing  for  France  to 
do  but  to  accept  the  situation,*  but  her 
resentment  was  deep  and  lasting.  This, 
however,  did  not  trouble  the  Italians. 
They  had  found  new  friends  and  were 
content  with  them.  For  better  or  for 
worse,  the  Triple  Alliance  was  destined 
to  last  for  a  whole  generation,  during 
which  it  was  to  be  one  of  the  dominant 
forces  in  the  European  world. 

*  For  an  excellent  and  dignified  article  on  the  subject,  see 
G.  Valbert,  "Un  publiciste  allemand  et  son  plaidoyer  en  fa- 
veur  de  la  triple  alliance,"  in  the  Revue  des  deux  mondes,  I 
June,  1892,  pp.  683-694. 


APPENDIX 


THE  AUSTRO-GERMAN  ALLIANCE 

The  exact  terms  of  the  Austro-German  al- 
liance were  known  only  to  a  very  few  people 
until  they  were  officially  published  on  February 
3,  1888.  There, may  have  been  supplementary 
conventions  at  different  times,  but  there  is  no 
reason  for  thinking  that  any  changes  have  been 
made  in  the  original  text.^ 

Inasmuch  as  their  Majesties  the  German  Emperor, 
King  of  Prussia,  and  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  King 
of  Hungary,  must  consider  it  their  inalienable  duty 
to  provide  for  the  security  of  their  Empires  and  the 
peace  of  their  subjects,  under  all  circumstances; 

Inasmuch  as  the  two  Sovereigns,  as  was  the  case 
under  the  former  existing  Treaty,  will  be  enabled  by 
the  close  union  of  the  two  Empires  to  fulfil  this  duty 
more  easily  and  more  efficaciously; 

Inasmuch  as,  finally,  an  intimate  cooperation  of 
Germany  and  Austria-Hungary  can  menace  no  one, 
but  is  rather  calculated  to  consolidate  the  peace  of 
Europe  on  the  terms  established  by  the  stipulations 
of  Berlin; 

'Published  in  the  Berlin  Official  Gazette,  February  3,  1883. 
Translation  in  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  Ixxiii  (Lon- 
don, 1889),  PP-  270-272. 

219 


220  APPENDIX 


Their  Majesties  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  and  the 
Emperor  of  Austria,  King  of  Hungary,  while  most 
solemnly  promising  never  to  allow  their  purely  de- 
fensive Agreement  to  develop  an  aggressive  tendency 
in  any  direction,  have  determined  to  conclude  an  al- 
liance of  peace  and  mutual  defence.  .  .  . 

Article  I.  Should,  contrary  to  their  hope,  and 
against  the  loyal  desire  of  the  two  High  Contracting 
Parties,  one  of  the  two  Empires  be  attacked  by  Rus- 
sia, the  High  Contracting  Parties  are  bound  to  come 
to  the  assistance  one  of  the  other  with  the  whole  war 
strength  of  their  Empires,  and  accordingly  only  to 
conclude  peace  together  and  upon  mutual  agree- 
ment. 

Article  II.  Should  one  of  the  High  Contracting 
Parties  be  attacked  by  another  Power,  the  other  High 
Contracting  Party  binds  itself  hereby,  not  only  not 
to  support  the  aggressor  against  its  high  ally,  but  to 
observe  at  least  a  benevolent  neutral  attitude  toward 
its  fellow  Contracting  Party. 

Should,  however,  in  such  a  case  the  attacking  Power 
be  supported  by  Russia,  either  by  an  active  coopera- 
tion or  by  military  measures  which  constitute  a  menace 
to  the  Party  attacked,  then  the  obligation  stipulated 
in  Article  I  of  this  Treaty,  for  mutual  assistance  with 
the  whole  fighting  force  becomes  equally  operative, 
and  the  conduct  of  the  war  by  the  two  High  Con- 
tracting Parties  shall  in  this  case  also  be  in  common 
until  the  conclusion  of  a  common  peace. 

Article  III.  This  Treaty  shall,  in  conformity 
with  its  peaceful  character,  and  to  avoid  any  mis- 
interpretations, be  kept  secret  by  the  two  High  Con- 
tracting Parties,  and  only  be  communicated  to  a 
third  Power  upon  a  joint  understanding  between  the 


APPENDIX  221 


two  Parties,  and  according  to  the  terms  of  a  special 
Agreement. 

The  two  High  Contracting  Parties  venture  to  hope, 
after  the  sentiments  expressed  by  the  Emperor  Alex- 
ander at  the  meeting  at  Alexandrovo,  that  the  arma- 
ments of  Russia  will  not  in  reality  prove  to  be  menacing 
to  them,  and  have  on  that  account  no  reason  for  making 
a  communication;  should,  however,  this  hope,  con- 
trary to  their  expectation,  prove  to  be  erroneous,  the 
two  High  Contracting  Parties  would  consider  it  their 
loyal  obligation  to  let  the  Emperor  Alexander  know, 
at  least  confidentially,  that  they  must  consider  an 
attack  on  either  of  them  as  directed  against  both. 

In  virtue  of  which  the  Plenipotentiaries  have  signed 
this  Treaty  and  affixed  their  seals. 

Vienna,  October  7,  1879. 

(L.S.)     H.  Vn,  P.  Reuss. 

(L.S.)     Andrassy. 


II 

THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE 

The  terms  of  the  Triple  Alliance  have  never 
been  published,  but  Articles  I,  III,  IV,  and  VII 
are  given  in  the  Austrian  Red  Book,  issued  in 
1915.^  The  last  part  of  Article  VII,  which  refers 
to  possible  territorial  changes  in  the  East,  and 
the  meaning  of  which  was  the  chief  subject  of 
dispute   in   the   negotiations   that   preceded    the 

^Diplomatic  Documents  concerning  the  Relations  of  Austria- 
Hungary  with  Italy,  pp.  179,  189,  190. 


223  APPENDIX 


outbreak  of  hostilities  between  Austria  and 
Italy,  was  not  in  the  original  treaty.  It  was 
inserted  in  1887,  when  the  treaty  was  renewed 
for  the  first  time.  The  first  part,  on  the  other 
hand,  may  well  have  been  in  the  original  treaty, 
as  we  know  there  was  a  provision  to  this  efi^ect. 
Articles  I,  III,  and  IV  were  probably  in  the 
treaty  of  1882;  but  the  wording  for  III  and  IV 
cannot  have  been  quite  the  same,  because,  as 
stated  above,  the  original  Triple  Alliance  was 
formed  by  the  Austro-German  treaty  of  1879, 
supplemented  in  1882  by  separate  though  sim- 
ilar treaties  between  Italy  and  Austria,  and 
Italy  and  Germany.  In  1887  there  was  but  one 
document,  signed  by  all  the  parties  to  the  treaty. 

Article  I.  The  High  contracting  Parties  mu- 
tually promise  peace  and  friendship,  and  shall  not 
enter  into  any  alliance  or  engagement  directed  against 
any  one  of  their  respective  States. 

They  bind  themselves  to  proceed  to  negotiations 
on  such  political  and  economic  questions  of  a  general 
nature  as  may  arise;  and,  moreover,  promise  their 
mutual  support  within  the  scope  of  their  own  in- 
terests. 

Article  III.  If  one  or  two  of  the  High  Contract- 
ing Parties  should  be  attacked  without  direct  provoca- 
tion on  their  part,  and  be  engaged  in  war  with  two  or 
several  Great  Powers  not  signatory  to  this  Treaty, 
the  casus  foederis  shall  apply  simultaneously  to  all 
the  High  Contracting  Parties. 

Article  IV.  In  the  event  that  a  Great  Power  not 
signatory   to   this  Treaty   should   menace   the  safety 


APPENDIX  223 


of  the  States  of  one  of  the  High  contracting  Parties, 
and  that  the  menaced  Party  should  be  forced  to  make 
war  on  that  Power,  the  two  others  bind  themselves 
to  observe  toward  their  ally  a  benevolent  neutrality. 
Each  one  of  them  in  that  case  reserves  to  herself  the 
right  to  participate  in  the  war,  if  she  should  consider 
it  appropriate  to  make  common  cause  with  her  ally. 

Article  VII.  Austria-Hungary  and  Italy,  being 
desirous  solely  that  the  territorial  status  quo  in  the 
near  East  be  maintained  as  much  as  possible,  pledge 
themselves  to  exert  their  influence  to  prevent  all  terri- 
torial modification  which  may  prove  detrimental  to 
one  or  the  other  of  the  Powers  signatory  to  this  Treaty. 
To  that  end  they  shall  communicate  to  one  another 
all  such  information  as  may  be  suitable  for  their  mu- 
tual enlightenment,  concerning  their  own  dispositions 
as  well  as  those  of  other  Powers, 

Should,  however,  the  status  quo  in  the  regions  of 
the  Balkans,  or  of  the  Turkish  coasts  and  islands  in 
the  Adriatic  and  ^Egean  Seas,  in  the  course  of  events 
become  impossible;  and  should  Austria-Hungary  or 
Italy  be  placed  under  the  necessity,  either  by  the  ac- 
tion of  a  third  Power  or  otherwise,  to  modify  that 
status  quo  by  a  temporary  or  permanent  occupation 
on  their  part,  such  occupation  shall  take  place  only 
after  a  previous  agreement  has  been  m.ade  between 
the  two  Powers,  based  on  the  principle  of  reciprocal 
compensation  for  all  advantages,  territorial  or  other- 
wise, which  either  of  them  may  obtain  beyond  the 
present  status  quo,  a  compensation  which  shall  satisfy 
the  legitimate  interests  and  aspirations  of  both  Par- 
ties. 


INDEX 

Abdul-Aziz,  Sultan,  90. 

Abdul-Hamid  II,  Sultan,  91. 

Adrianople,  armistice  of,  130. 

Adriatic,  the,  184,  202,  212. 

iEgean,  the,  92,  126,  132. 

Afghanistan,  135. 

Alabama  claims,  the,  14. 

Albania,  96,  132,  143,  190. 

Albert,  Prince,  16. 

Alexander  I,  Tsar,  49. 

Alexander  II,  Tsar,  17,  18,  19,  47,  50,  59/.,  63,  91  /., 

93,  95,  99,  100,  loi,  102,  105  /.,  Ill,  115  /.,  129/., 

134,  154,  155,  156,  165,  167/.,  170,  172,  174/. 
Alexander  III,  Tsar,  175  /. 
Alexander  the  Great,  65  /. 
Alexandrovo,  meeting  of  emperors  at,  167/. 
Algeria,  193-196,  198. 
Algiers,  193,  199. 

Alsace-Lorraine,  5,  35,  54,  102,  202,  212,  217/. 
American  independence,  war  of,  4. 
Andrassy,  Count  Julius,  45  /.,  85,  93,  97,  99,  103,  114, 

124,  125,  130,  133,  134,  138,  148,  149/.,  151,  157. 

165,  166,  169,  170,  172. 
Andrassy  note,  the,  85,  89. 
Anti-clericalism,  in  France,  216/. 
Arabs,  the,  66,  191. 
Armenia,  143. 
Armenians,  the,  141,  147. 

225 


226  INDEX 


Arnlm,  Count  Harry  von,  37,  200/. 

Asia  Minor,  66. 

Augusta,  Empress,  53. 

Ausgleich,  the,  21  /. 

Austria-Hungary,  3,  20-23,  35,  41,  42  /.,  64,  66,  67, 
153,  154,  180,  183,  189,  190,  202,  204,  208; the  League 
of  the  Three  Emperors,  43-62;  the  Eastern  Question, 
68/.,  73-76,  80,  82/.,  85  /.,  92-ios,  111-115,  117, 
123-130,  133-141,  144,  148-151,  176-179;  the  Aus- 
tro-German  aUiance,  157-175;  admission  of  Italy  to 
the  alliance,  179,  209-216. 

Azov,  68. 

Balkan  Peninsula,  the,  see  Eastern  Question. 

Baltic  provinces,  the,  164. 

Barbary  states,  the,  194  /. 

Bardo,  treaty  of  the,  206,  208,  209. 

Bariatinski,  51. 

Batum,  114,  note,  132,  137,  140. 

Bayazid,  132,  137. 

Beaconsfield,  Earl  of,  87,  105,  106,  126,  133,  138,  141, 

147,  173. 

Belgium,  15. 

Belgrade,  177. 

Berlin,  Congress  of,  130,  136-154,  163,  165,  173,  197 /•> 
202,  204. 

Berlin,  meeting  of  the  three  emperors  at,  47/. 

Berlin  Memorandum,  the,  86,  89,  90. 

Bessarabia,  92,  96/.,  114,  132,  137,  140. 

Beust,  Count,  39/.,  44/.;  quoted,  31,  note. 

Bismarck,  Prince  Otto  von,  15,  19,  63,  88,  99,  126,  128, 
150,  156,  176,  190,  210,  213^.;  commanding  position 
of,  27  /.;  policy  of,  28-43;  the  League  of  the  Three 
Emperors,  43-62;  prefers  Austria  to  Russia,  loi  /., 


INDEX  227 


112/.,  134/.;  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  136,  138-141, 

151-154;  frames  an  alliance  with  Austria,  157-173; 

his  estimate  of  the  Italians,   189,   214;  suggests  to 

England  the  occupation  of  Egypt,  197/.;  his  Tunisian 

policy,  200-203. 
Black  Sea  clause  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  abrogation  of, 

16,  19. 
Bonaparte,  house  of,  36. 
Bosnia,  81,  82,  91,  92,  93,  94,  note,  96,  97,  100,  103, 

107,  108,  114,  132,  138,  140,  143,  145,  149,  150  /., 

155,  176,  190. 
Bourbons,  the,  36,  188. 
Britain,  191. 
Bulgaria,  80/.,  96,  97,  103,  105,  107,  121  /.,  131,  132, 

i33»  I39>  145;  176,  177- 
Byzantine  empire,  the,  66,  70. 

Caesar,  181. 

Cairoli,  208. 

Carthage,  191,  193. 

Catherine  II,  empress  of  Russia,  81,  159. 

Cavour,  184. 

Central  Asia,  135. 

Chambord,  Comte  de,  188. 

Christians,  oppression  of,  by  the  Turks,  69  /.,  75,  76, 

97/.,  131,  139,  147. 
Cisalpine  Gaul,  181. 
Civita  Vecchia,  188. 
Clericals,  in  Austria,  172;  in  France,  10,  185;  in  Italy, 

186. 
Commune,  the,  5. 
Constantinople,  79,  94,  note,  96,  106,  117,  123,  129, 

131,  134,  136. 
Constantinople  Conference,  the,  107-111. 


228  INDEX 


Convention  of  Constantinople,  see  Cyprus  Convention. 

Corsica,  185. 

Corti,  Count,  202. 

Crimea,  the,  100. 

Crimean  war,  the,  13, 16, 17, 18,20,42,75, 115,135,197. 

Crispi,  Francesco,  189/.,  202. 

Croatia,  21. 

Cyprus,  137,  198. 

Cyprus  Convention,  the,  137/.,  141,  147,  198. 

Dalmatia,  82,  83,  86. 

Decazes,  Due,  56,  58,  60. 

Derby,  Lord,  107,  117,  133;  quoted,  109. 

Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  quoted,  61,  note,  201,  note. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  see  Beaconsfield. 

Dobrudja,  the,  132. 

Eastern  Question,  the,  32,  41,  56,  64,  65-154,  176-179, 

190,  197,  202,  212,  213. 
Eastern  Rumelia,  139,  176. 
Egypt,  117,  197,  198. 
Egyptians,  the,  120. 
Elizabeth,  empress  of  Russia,  38  /. 
England,  11-17,  32,  34,  52,  56,  59,  60,  61,  62,  173,  198; 

the  Eastern  Question,  yS,  80,  85,  87-90,  98,   100, 

105-111,  117,  123-131,  133-141,  144,  146/.;  Tunis, 

196,  198,  199/.,  204,  208,  209. 
Epirus,  143  /. 
Eugene,  Prince,  3. 
Exarchate,  Bulgarian,  established,  80  /. 

Ferry,  Jules,  206,  207. 
Fraknoi,  cited,  213,  note. 

France,  3-9,  30  /.,  35-41,  43,  44,  52,  53  /.,  85,  128, 
I73>  189,  190,  214,  215,  216/.,  218;  the  war  scare  of 


INDEX  229 


1875,  55-62,  161;  the  Eastern  Question,  76,  87,  90, 
117,  126;  relations  with  Italy,  179-188;  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Tunis,  190-209,  212,  216. 

Francis  Joseph,  emperor  of  Austria,  20,  44,  46,  93,  95, 
97,  102,  104,  106,  114/.,  129,  149,  156,  note,  166, 
209,  211. 

Frankfort,  Parliament  of,  25. 

Frankfort,  Peace  of,  i,  160,  187. 

Frederick,  crown  prince  of  Germany,  16,  62. 

Frederick  the  Great,  king  of  Prussia,  24,  38/.,  159. 

Frederick  William  IV,  king  of  Prussia,  162. 

French  Revolution,  the,  4,  25,  182. 

Garibaldi,  184,  185,  187. 

Gastein,  157,  165-168. 

Genoa,  185. 

German  Confederation,  the,  20,  158,  169. 

Germany,  2/.,  23-27,  92,  99,  117,  128,  144,  198/.;  Bis- 
marck and  his  policy,  27-44;  the  League  of  the 
Three  Emperors,  44-52;  the  Kulturkampf,  53;  alarm 
at  the  rapid  recovery  of  France,  53  ff.;  the  war  scare 
of  1875,  55-62;  loosening  of  the  League  of  the  Three 
Emperors,  62  ff.,  84;  murder  of  the  German  consul 
at  Salonica,  90;  prefers  Austria  to  Russia,  100  ff., 
112  f.,  134/.;  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  136-142,  151- 
154;  estrangement  of  Russia,  154-161;  the  Austro- 
German  alliance,  161-175;  relations  with  Italy, 
188  ff.;  the  question  of  Tunis,  200-203;  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Triple  Alliance,  209-218. 

Giers,  de,  176. 

Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  105,  147,  201,  note. 

Gontaut-Biron,  Due  de,  57. 

Gorchakov,  Prince,  51,  60,  63,  86,  93,  94,  note,  99,  114, 
note,  138,  153,  156. 


230  INDEX 

Great  Britain,  see  England. 

Great  Bulgaria,  127,  136,  139,  145,  146/. 

Great  Germany,  33,  164,  172. 

Great  powers,  the,  2-27. 

Great  Serbia,  127. 

Greece,  24,  56,  81,  96,  123,  133,  141,  143  /■,  146,  I47; 

invades  Thessaly,  131. 
Guildhall  banquet,  Lord  Beaconsfield's  address  at,  106. 

Herodotus,  65. 

Herzegovina,  64,  81,  82,  83,  91,  92,  93,  94,  note,  96, 

103,  107,  108,  114,  132,  138,  140,  14s,  149,  150/., 

176,  190. 
Hohenlohe,  Prince,  58,  171. 
Holland,  31,  note. 
Holy  Alliance,  the,  41,  49. 
Holy  Places,  the,  197. 
Humbert,  king  of  Italy,  209  /. 
Hungary,  see  Austria-Hungary. 

Ignatiev,  Count,  79  /.,  108. 

India,  4,  87,  135;  Indian  troops  sent  to  Malta,  133. 

Industrial  development  of  Germany,  33. 

Ischl,  meeting  at,  44,  46. 

Italia  Irredenta,  185,  204,  211. 

Italy,  2,  9/.,  35,  42,  52,  87,  92,  117,  148;  relations  with 
France,  179-188;  looks  for  friends  elsewhere,  188- 
191;  the  question  of  Tunis,  191-209;  enters  into  alli- 
ance with  Austria  and  Germany,  209-218. 

Jena,  24. 

John  Sobieski,  king  of  Poland,  66. 

Kabul,  135,  note. 

Kalnoky,  Count,  176,  note,  213. 


INDEX  231 


Kars,  123,  132,  137,  140. 
Kroumirs,  the,  206. 
Kulturkampf,  the,  31  /.,  53  /. 

Latin  nations,  the,  181  /. 

League  of  the  Three  Emperors,  the,  43-62,  63,  84,  87, 

89,  98,  152,  159,  165,  171,  188. 
Le  Flo,  General,  59. 
Leipsic,  battle  of,  159. 
Livadia,  icx)  f. 
Loftus,  Lord,  105. 
Lombardy,  83,  148, 
London,  Treaty  of  (1871),  118. 
London  Conference,  the,  19,  note,  123,  141. 
London  protocol,  the  (March  31,  1877),  115/. 
Lorraine,  30. 

Louis  II,  king  of  Bavaria,  171. 
Louis  XIV,  king  of  France,  3,  26. 
Louis  XV,  king  of  France,  3  /. 
Lyons,  Lord,  56. 

Maccio,  Italian  consul  at  Tunis,  204  /. 

Macedonia,  127,  139,  143,  147. 

Magenta,  battle  of,  183. 

Malta,  133. 

Manchester,  Lord  Salisbury's  speech  at,  173. 

Manteuffel,  General,  99,  166. 

Marlborough,  Duke  of,  3. 

Marseilles,  riot  at,  209. 

Mazzini,  quoted,  193,  note. 

Mediterranean,  the,  Italian  ambitions  for  empire  in, 
10,  186,  19?  f-,  200,  211,  212,  213/.;  England  opposes 
Russia's  access  to,  126;  policy  of  France  in,  186,  194, 
198;  position  of  England  in,  199  /. 


232  INDEX 


Mentana,  185. 

Metternich,  Prince,  49. 

Milan,  Prince,  98,  178. 

Miliutin,  General,  168. 

Moltke,  von,  39,  50,  51,  55,  58,  171. 

Montenegro,  73,  79,  86,  91,  95,  96,  97,  107,  113  /.,  116, 

132,  140,  143,  145  /.,  177. 
Morier,  Sir  Robert,  quoted,  63,  note. 
Morocco,  193,  note,  195. 
Moscow,  Panslavic  Congress  at,  78;  the  Tsar's  address 

at  (November  10,  1876),  106/. 
Murad  V,  Sultan,  90/. 

Naples,  speech  of  Crispi  at,  190,  note. 
Napoleon  I,  11,  25,  27,  41,  159;  the  Napoleonic  em- 
pire, 4. 
Napoleon  III,  i,  4,  15,  23,  39,  182/.,  186,  187,  195. 
Nationality,  development  of  the  consciousness  of,  77. 
Nelson,  II. 

.Nice,  annexation  of,  10,  184. 
Nicholas  I,  Tsar,  49,  162. 
Nish,  178,  note. 

North  Africa,  66,  191-209,  212,  216. 
North  America,  3  /. 
Novibazar,  district  of,  140,  146,  177. 

Orleans,  house  of,  36. 
Orthodox,  the,  69,  70,  72. 
Orthodox  Serbs,  the,  151. 
Osman  Pasha,  121,  122,  127. 
Ottoman  empire,  the,  see  Turkey. 
Ottoman  Turks,  the,  66. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  14. 

Panslavism,  78/.,  154,  164/.,  173,  182. 


INDEX  233 


Panteutonism,  182. 

Paris,  Congress  of  (1856),  123,  141,  142,  197. 

Paris,  taken  by  the  allies,  159;  by  the  Germans  (1871), 
26,  129;  by  the  national  troops,  from  the  Com- 
mune, 5. 

Paris,  Treaty  of  (1856),  76,  97,  109,  126. 

Passarowitz,  Peace  of,  67. 

'Peace  with  honor,'  141,  146. 

Persia,  65. 

Peter  the  Great,  68,  69,  78. 

Pirot,  178,  note. 

Plevna,  battles  at,  121,  122,  127. 

Poland,  155;  the  Polish  insurrection  of  1863,  14,  16,  18, 

79- 
Portugal,  196. 
Prussia,  see  Germany. 

Radowitz,  Count  von,  56,  57,  58,  99,  163. 

Reichstadt,  interview  at,  95  /.,  189. 

Reuss,  Prince,  94,  note,  172. 

Revertera,  Count  Friedrich,  cited,  93,  note,  94,  note. 

Revolution  of  1830,  the,  41. 

Richelieu,  3. 

Roman  Catholic  church,  the,  73;  the  temporal  author- 
ity of  the  Pope,  2,  180,  183,  186,  188,  211,  217;  Fran- 
cis Joseph  and  the  papacy,  209;  the  Kulturkampf  in 
Germany,  31  /.,  53  /. 

Roman  empire,  the,  overthrown  by  the  Germans,  23; 
modern  Italy  and  the  Roman  imperial  traditions  in 
the  Mediterranean,  192  /. 

Rome,  taken  by  the  Gauls,  181;  subdues  western  Asia, 
66;  occupied  by  the  French,  4,  185;  acquired  by  Italy 
as  a  capital,  i,  9,  180,  186,  211. 

Roustan,  French  consul  at  Tunis,  205. 


234  INDEX 


Royalists,  French,  i88. 

Rubicon,  the,  i8i. 

Rumania,  iiS/.,  132,  133,  134,  140. 

Russia,  3,  17/.,  34/.,  41,  42,  63,  64,  159,  160-163,  165, 
169,  170  /.,  189,  204,  208,  214;  the  League  of  the 
Three  Emperors,  43-62;  the  Eastern  Question,  68- 
154;  resentment  toward  Germany,  154-157;  the  Bal- 
tic provinces,  164;  meeting  of  Alexander  II  and 
William  I  at  Alexandrovo,  166  j^.;  attitude  toward 
the  Austro-German  alliance,  173-176. 

Sadowa,  battle  of,  21,  30. 

Safet  Pasha,  109  /. 

St.  Sophia,  cathedral  of,  70. 

Salisbury,  Lord,  108,  133,  138,  173,  198,  204. 

Salonica,  148;  murder  of  the  French  and  German  con- 
suls at,  90. 

Salzburg,  46. 

San  Stefano,  Treaty  of,  131  ff.,  139,  145,  177. 

Sardinia,  193,  note. 

Savoy,  annexation  of,  10,  184. 

Savoy,  house  of,  184,  211. 

Schleswig-Holstein  question,  the,  14. 

Schneider,  German  teacher  of  Alexander  II,  47,  note. 

Schonbrunn,  treaty  of  alliance  signed  at,  93  /. 

Sebastopol,  fall  of,  13. 

Seljuk  Turks,  the,  66. 

Seraievo,  151. 

Serbia,  73,  75,  79,  80,  81,  91,  95,  96,  97/.,  100,  105,  107, 
113/.,  118,  123,  132,  133,  140,  145/.,  151,  177/. 

Serfdom,  abolition  of,  in  Russia,  17,  115. 

Seven  Years'  war,  the,  38. 

Shuvalov,  162,  163. 

Sicily,  193,  note,  196, 


INDEX  235 


Skobelev,  General,  135,  note. 

Slavophilism,  77. 

Solferino,  battle  of,  183. 

South  Slavs,  22,  148. 

Spain,  3,  181,  191,  195,  196,  217. 

Suez  Canal,  the,  88,  117,  198,  note,  2CX). 

Syria,  66. 

Talleyrand,  31. 

Tartars,  the,  69. 

Thessaly,  131,  143. 

Thiers,  President,  8,  37. 

Trent  affair,  the,  14. 

Trentino,  the,  20. 

Tripoli,  195,  note,  216,  note. 

Tunis,  191-209,  212,  215. 

Turkey,  64,  149,  155,  190,  191,  196,  202,  208;  rise  and 
decline  of,  66-75;  the  Crimean  war,  75  /.;  increasing 
corruption  and  misgovernment,  76;  religious,  racial, 
and  diplomatic  causes  of  the  war  of  1877-78,  76- 
116;  the  Russo-Turkish  war,  1 16-138;  the  Cyprus 
Convention,  137/.,  147;  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  138- 
141;  contrast  between  1856  and  1878,  142  /.; 
estrangement  of  England,  147/. 

United  States,  the,  13. 

Valbert,  G.,  cited,  218,  note. 

Vandal  conquest  of  Africa,  the,  191. 

Venetia,  20,  21,  83,  148. 

Venice,  82,  183,  189. 

Versailles,  proclamation   of   the    German    empire    at, 

I,  26. 
Victor  Emmanuel,  king  of  Italy,  52,  187,  188,  209. 


236  INDEX 

Victoria,  Queen,  16,  62,  note,  87. 
Vienna,  defeat  of  the  Turks  at,  66,  68. 
Vienna  Exhibition  of  1873,  the,  51. 
Villafranca,  Peace  of,  183. 

Waddington,  191,  note,  198,  202/. 

War  indemnity,  French,  5,  7,  35,  53  /.;  Turkish,  132, 

140/. 
War  scare  of  1875,  the,  55-62,  161. 
Waterloo,  12,  24. 
Wellington,  11. 

Werder,  General  von,  lOO /.,  102,  163. 
William  I,  emperor  of  Germany,  I,  18,  19,  23,  28,  44, 

46,  50,  60,  61,  99,  155  /.,  I57»  IS9>  165,  166,  167,  168, 

170,  171,  174,  176. 
Woods,  English  consul  at  Tunis,  204. 


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